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BE  CALIF.  LIBRARY^  LOS 


BROWNING  AND  HIS  CENTURY 


BY  THE  SAME  AUTHOR 

BROWNING'S  ITALY 

BROWNING'S  ENGLAND 

A  GUIDE  TO  MYTHOLOGY 

ANCIENT  MYTHS  IN  MODERN  POETS 

LONGFELLOW'S  COUNTRY 

HAWTHORNE'S  COUNTRY 

THE  POETS'  NEW  ENGLAND 


BROWNING  AT  23  (LONDON  1835) 


Browning  and  His 
Century 


BY 
HELEN  ARCHIBALD  CLARKE 

Author  of  "Browning's  Italy,"  "Browning's  England,"  etc, 


ILLUSTRATED 

FROM 
PHOTOGRAPHS 


GARDEN  CITY        NEW  YORK 
DOUBLEDAY,  PAGE  &  COMPANY 
1912 


Copyright,  1912,  by 

DOUBLEDAY,  PAGE  &  Co. 
All  rights  reserved,  including  that  of 
translation  into  foreign  languages, 
including  the  Scandinavian 


THE  BOSTON  BROWNING  SOCIETY 

IN  COMMEMORATION  OF  THE 

BROWNING  CENTENARY— 1812-1912 


CONTENTS 

CHAPTER  I 

PAGE 

THE  BATTLE  OF  MIND  AND  SPIBIT 3 

CHAPTER  II 

THE  CENTURY'S  END:  PROMISE  OF  PEACE     ....      77 

CHAPTER  HI 
POLITICAL  TENDENCIES 118 

CHAPTER  IV 
SOCIAL  IDEALS 174 

CHAPTER  V 
ART  SHIBBOLETHS 217 

CHAPTER  VI 
CLASSIC  SURVIVALS 277 

CHAPTER 
PROPHETIC  VISIONS 


ILLUSTRATIONS 

Browning  at  23  (London  1835)     .     .     .     Frontispiece 

FACING   PAGE 

Paracelsus 38 

Herbert  Spencer 94 

David  Strauss 112 

Cardinal  Wiseman 120 

William  Ewart  Gladstone 160 

William  Morris        196 

John  Burns 208 

Alfred  Tennyson •  .  250 

A.  C.  Swinburne 260 

Dante  Gabriel  Rossetti 266 

George  Meredith 272 

Euripides 296 

Aristophanes 306 

Walter  Savage  Landor 330 

Browning  at  77  (1889) 360 


BROWNING  AND  HIS   CENTURY 


PROLOGUE 

TO  ROBERT  BROWNING 

"Say  not  we  know  but  rather  that  we  love, 
And  so  we  know  enough."    Thus  deeply  spoke 
The  Sage;  and  in  men's  stunted  hearts  awoke 

A  haunting  fear,  for  fain  are  they  to  prove 

Their  life,  their  God,  with  yeas  and  nays  that  move 
The  mind's  uncertain  flow.     Then  fierce  outbroke, — 
Knowledge,  the  child  of  pain  shall  we  revoke? 

The  guide  wherewith  men  climb  to  things  above? 

Nay,  calm  your  fears!     'Tis  but  the  mere  mind's  knowing, 
The  soul's  alone  the  poet  worthy  deeming. 
Let  mind  up-build  its  entities  of  seeming 

With  toil  and  tears!     The  toil  is  but  for  showing 

How  much  there  lacks  of  truth.     But  'tis  no  dreaming 
When  sky  throbs  back  to  heart,  with  God's  love  beaming. 


THE  BATTLE  OF  MIND  AND  SPIRIT 

DURING  the  nineteenth  century,  which 
has  already  receded  far  enough  into  the 
perspective  of  the  past  for  us  to  be  able  to 
take  a  comprehensive  view  of  it,  the  advance 
guard  of  the  human  race  found  itself  in  a 
position  entirely  different  from  that  ever 
before  occupied  by  it.  Through  the  knowledge 
of  cosmic,  animal,  and  social  evolution  gradu- 
ally accumulated  by  the  laborious  and  careful 
studies  of  special  students  in  every  depart- 
ment of  historical  research  and  scientific 
experiment,  a  broader  and  higher  state  of 
self-consciousness  was  attained.  Mankind, 
on  its  most  perceptive  plane,  no  longer  pinned 
its  faith  to  inherited  traditions,  whether  of 
religion,  art,  or  morals.  Every  conceivable 
fact  and  every  conceivable  myth  was  to  be 
tested  in  the  laboratory  of  the  intellect,  even 
the  intellect  itself  was  to  undergo  dissection, 
with  the  result  that,  once  for  all,  it  has  been 
decided  what  particular  range  of  human 
knowledge  lies  within  the  reach  of  mental 

3 


4       BROWNING  AND  HIS  CENTURY 

perception,  and  what  particular  range  of 
human  knowledge  can  be  grasped  only  through 
spiritual  perception. 

Such  a  momentous  decision  as  this  in  the 
history  of  thought  has  not  been  reached 
without  a  long  and  protracted  struggle  extend- 
ing back  into  the  early  days  of  Christianity, 
nor,  it  may  be  said,  is  the  harmony  as  yet 
complete,  for  there  are  to-day,  and  perhaps 
always  will  be,  human  beings  whose  conscious- 
ness is  not  fully  orbed  and  who  either  seek 
their  point  of  equilibrium  too  entirely  in  the 
plane  of  mind  or  too  entirely  in  the  plane  of 
spirit. 

In  the  early  days,  before  Christianity  came 
to  bring  its  "sword  upon  earth,"  there  seems 
to  have  been  little  or  no  consciousness  of 
such  a  struggle.  The  ancient  Hindu,  observ- 
ing Nature  and  meditating  upon  the  universe, 
arrived  intuitively  at  a  perception  of  life 
and  its  processes  wonderfully  akin  to  that 
later  experimentally  proved  by  the  nineteenth 
century  scientist,  nor  did  he  have  a  suspicion 
that  such  truth  was  in  any  way  antagonistic 
to  religious  truth.  On  the  contrary,  he  con- 
sidered that,  by  it,  the  beauty  and  mystery 
of  religion  was  immeasurably  enhanced,  and, 
letting  his  imagination  play  upon  his  intui- 
tion, he  brought  forth  a  theory  of  spiritual 


BATTLE  OF  MIND  AND  SPIRIT       5 

evolution  in  which  the  world  to-day  is  bound 
to  recognize  many  elements  of  beauty  and 
power  necessary  to  any  complete  conception 
of  religion  in  the  future. 

Even  the  Babylonians  made  their  guesses 
at  an  evolutionary  theory  of  the  universe. 
Greek  philosophy,  later,  was  permeated  with 
the  idea,  it  having  been  derived  by  them 
perhaps  from  the  Chaldeans  through  the 
Phoenicians,  or  if  the  theories  of  Aryan  mi- 
grations be  correct,  perhaps  through  inher- 
itance from  a  remote  Aryan  ancestry. 

When  Christian  thought  gained  its  hold 
upon  the  world,  the  account  of  creation  given 
in  Genesis  became  so  thoroughly  impressed 
upon  the  minds  of  men  that  it  was  regarded 
as  the  orthodox  view,  rooted  in  divine  revela- 
tion, and  to  question  it  was  to  incur  the 
danger  of  being  called  an  atheist,  with  its 
possibly  uncomfortable  consequences  of  being 
martyred. 

Strangely  enough,  the  early  Church  adopted 
into  its  fold  many  pagan  superstitions,  such 
as  a  belief  in  witchcraft  and  in  signs  and 
wonders,  as  well  as  some  myths,  but  this 
great  truth  upon  which  the  pagan  mind  had 
stumbled,  it  would  have  none  of. 

These  two  circumstances  —  the  adoption 
on  the  part  of  Christianity  of  pagan  supersti- 


6       BROWNING  AND  HIS  CENTURY 

tions  and  its  utter  repudiation  of  the  pagan 
guesses  upon  evolution,  carrying  within  it 
the  germs  of  truth,  later  to  be  unearthed  by 
scientific  research  —  furnished  exactly  the 
right  conditions  for  the  throwing  down  of  the 
gauntlet  between  the  mind  and  the  spirit. 
The  former,  following  intellectual  guidance, 
found  itself  coming  more  and  more  into 
antagonism  with  the  spirit,  not  yet  freed  from 
the  trammels  of  imagination.  The  latter, 
guided  by  imagination,  continued  to  exercise 
a  mythopoeic  faculty,  which  not  only  brought 
it  more  and  more  into  antagonism  with  the 
mind,  but  set  up  within  its  own  realm  an 
internecine  warfare  which  has  blackened  the 
pages  of  religious  history  with  crimes  and 
martyrdoms  so  terrible  as  to  force  the  con- 
viction that  the  true  devil  in  antagonism  to 
spiritual  development  has  been  the  imagina- 
tion of  mankind,  masquerading  as  verity,  and 
not  yet  having  found  its  true  function  in  art. 
Regarded  from  the  point  of  view  of  the 
student  of  intellectual  development,  this  con- 
flict of  two  thousand  years  has  the  fascination 
of  a  great  drama  of  which  the  protagonist  is 
the  mind  struggling  to  free  the  spirit  from 
its  subjection  to  the  evil  aspects  of  the  imagi- 
nation. Great  thinkers  in  the  field  of  science, 
philosophy,  and  religion  are  the  dramatis 


BATTLE  OF  MIND  AND  SPIRIT       7 

personce,  and  in  the  onward  rush  of  this  world- 
drama  the  sufferings  of  those  who  have  fallen 
by  the  way  seem  insignificant. 

But  when  the  student  of  history  takes  his 
more  intimate  survey  of  the  purely  human 
aspects  of  the  struggle,  heartrending,  indeed, 
become  the  tragedies  resulting  from  the  exer- 
cise of  human  bigotry  and  stupidity. 

Indignation  and  sorrow  take  possession  of 
us  when  we  think  upon  such  a  spectacle  as 
that  of  Roger  Bacon,  making  ready  to  per- 
form a  few  scientific  experiments  before  a 
small  audience  at  Oxford,  confronted  by  an 
uproar  in  which  monks,  fellows,  and  students 
rushed  about,  their  garments  streaming  in 
the  wind,  crying  out,  "Down  with  the  magi- 
cian!" And  this  was  only  the  beginning  of 
a  persecution  which  ended  in  his  teaching 
being  solemnly  condemned  by  the  authorities 
of  the  Franciscan  order  and  himself  thrown 
for  fourteen  years  into  prison,  whence  he 
issued  an  old  and  broken  man  of  eighty. 

More  barbarous  still  was  the  treatment  of 
Giordano  Bruno,  a  strange  sort  of  man  who 
developed  his  philosophy  in  about  twenty- 
five  works,  some  prose,  some  poetry,  some 
dialogues,  some  comedies,  with  such  enticing 
titles  as  "The  Book  of  the  Great  Key,"  "The 
Explanation  of  the  Thirty  Seals,"  "The  Ex- 


8       BROWNING  AND  HIS  CENTURY 

pulsion  of  the  Triumphant  Beast,"  "The 
Threefold  Minimum,"  "The  Composition  of 
Images,"  "The  Innumerable,  the  Immense 
and  the  Unfigurable."  His  utterances  were 
vague,  especially  to  the  intellects  of  his  time, 
yet  not  so  vague  that  theology,  whether 
Catholic  or  Calvinistic,  did  not  at  once  take 
fright. 

He  held  that  the  investigation  of  nature 
in  the  unbiased  light  of  reason  is  our  only 
guide  to  truth.  He  rejected  antiquity,  tradi- 
tion, faith,  and  authority;  he  exclaimed, 
"Let  us  begin  by  doubt.  Let  us  doubt  till 
we  know."  Acting  upon  these  principles,  he 
began  to  unfold  again  that  current  of  Greek 
thought  which  the  system  imposed  by  the 
Church  had  intercepted  for  more  than  a  thou- 
sand years,  and  arrived  at  a  conception  of 
evolution  prefiguring  the  modern  theories. 

He  conceived  the  law  of  the  universe  to  be 
unceasing  change.  "Each  individual,"  he 
declared,  "is  the  resultant  of  innumerable 
individuals;  each  species  is  the  starting  point 
for  the  next."  Furthermore,  he  maintained 
that  the  perfecting  of  the  individual  soul  is 
the  aim  of  all  progress. 

Tenets  so  opposite  to  the  orthodox  view  of 
special  creation  and  the  fall  of  man  could  not 
be  allowed  to  go  unchallenged.  It  is  to  be 


BATTLE  OF  MIND  AND  SPIRIT        9 

remembered  that  he  was  a  priest  in  holy 
orders  in  the  Convent  of  St.  Dominic,  and  in 
the  year  1576  he  was  accused  by  the  Provin- 
cial of  his  order  of  heresy  ont  one  hundred 
and  thirty  counts.  He  did  not  await  his 
trial,  but  fled  to  Rome,  thence  to  northern 
Italy,  and  became  for  some  years  a  wanderer. 
He  was  imprisoned  at  Geneva;  at  Toulouse  he 
spent  a  year  lecturing  on  Aristotle;  in  Paris, 
two  years  as  professor  extraordinary  in  the 
Sorbonne;  three  years  in  London,  where  he 
became  the  friend  of  Sir  Philip  Sidney,  and 
influenced  the  philosophy  of  both  Bacon  and 
Shakespeare.  Oxford,  however,  was  un- 
friendly to  his  teachings  and  he  was  obliged 
to  flee  from  England  also.  Then  he  wandered 
for  five  years  from  city  to  city  in  Germany  — 
at  one  time  warned  to  leave  the  town,  at 
another  excommunicated,  at  another  not  even 
permitted  to  lodge  within  the  gates.  Finally, 
he  accepted  the  invitation  of  a  noble  Venetian, 
Zuane  Mocenigo,  to  visit  Venice  and  teach 
him  the  higher  and  secret  learning.  The 
two  men  soon  quarreled,  and  Bruno  was 
betrayed  by  the  count  into  the  hands  of  the 
Inquisition.  He  was  convicted  of  heresy  in 
Venice  and  delivered  to  the  Inquisition  in 
Rome.  He  spent  seven  years  in  its  dungeons, 
and  was  again  tried  and  convicted,  and  called 


10     BROWNING  AND  HIS  CENTURY 

upon  to  recant,  which  he  stoutly  refused  to 
do.  Sentence  of  death  was  then  passed  upon 
him  and  he  was  burned  at  the  stake  on  Feb- 
ruary 17,  1600,  on  the  Campo  de*  Fiori, 
where  there  now  stands  a  statue  erected  by 
Progressive  Italy  in  his  honor. 

His  last  words  were,  "I  die  a  martyr,  and 
willingly."  Then  they  cast  his  ashes  into 
the  Tiber  and  placed  his  name  among  the 
accused  on  the  rolls  of  the  Church.  And 
there  it  probably  still  remains,  for  no  longer 
ago  than  1889,  when  his  statue  was  unveiled 
on  the  ninth  of  June,  on  the  site  of  his  burn- 
ing, in  full  view  of  the  Vatican,  Pope  Leo  XIII, 
it  is  said,  refused  food  and  spent  hours  in 
an  agony  of  prayer  at  the  foot  of  the  statue 
of  St.  Peter.  Catholic,  and  even  Protestant, 
denunciation  of  Bruno  at  this  time  showed 
that  the  smoke  from  this  particular  battle 
hi  the  war  of  mind  with  spirit  was  still  far 
from  being  laid. 

With  the  fate  of  Giordano  Bruno  still 
fresh  in  his  mind,  Galileo  succumbed  to  the 
demands  of  the  Inquisition  and  recanted, 
saying  that  he  no  longer  believed  what  he, 
himself,  with  his  telescope  had  proved  to  be 
true. 

"I,  Galileo,  being  in  my  seventieth  year,  being  a  prisoner 
and  on  my  knees,  and  before  your  Eminences,  having  before 


BATTLE  OP  MIND  AND  SPIRIT      11 

my  eyes  the  Holy  Gospel,  which  I  touch  with  my  hands, 
abjure,  curse,  and  detest  the  error  and  the  heresy  of  the 
movement  of  the  earth. " 

If  this  recantation  had  brought  any  com- 
fort or  peace  into  his  life  it  might  have  been 
hard  to  forgive  Galileo's  perjury  of  himself. 
His  persecution,  however,  continued  to  the 
end.  He  was  exiled  from  his  family  and 
friends,  and,  even  when  he  had  become  blind 
and  wasted  by  sorrow  and  disease,  he  was 
still  closely  watched  lest  he  might  utter  the 
awful  heresy  that  the  earth  moved. 

A  hundred  years  later  than  this,  when 
Buff  on  attempted  to  teach  the  simple  truths 
of  geology,  he  was  deposed  from  his  high  posi- 
tion and  made  to  recant  by  the  theological 
faculty  of  the  Sorbonne.  The  man  who 
promulgated  geological  principles,  as  firmly 
established  to-day  as  that  of  the  rotation  of 
the  earth  upon  its  axis,  was  forced  to  write: 
"I  declare  that  I  had  no  intention  to  contra- 
dict the  text  of  Scripture;  that  I  believe  most 
firmly  all  therein  related  about  the  creation, 
both  as  to  order  of  time  and  matter  of  fact. 
I  abandon  everything  in  my  book  respecting 
the  formation  of  the  earth,  and  generally  all 
which  may  be  contrary  to  the  narrative  of 
Moses." 

Such  are  the  more  heinous  examples  of 


12     BROWNING  AND  HIS  CENTURY 

the  persecution  of  the  men  who  discovered 
the  truths  of  science.  To  these  should  be 
added  the  wholesale  persecution  of  witches 
and  magicians,  for  unusual  knowledge  of  any 
sort  ran  the  chance  of  being  regarded  as 
contrary  to  biblical  teaching  and  of  being 
attributed  to  the  machinations  of  the  Prince 
of  Darkness. 

Every  new  step  made  in  the  direction  of 
scientific  truth  has  had  thus  to  face  the  most 
determined  opposition.  Persecution  by  torture 
and  death  died  out,  but  up  to  the  nineteenth 
century,  and  well  on  through  it,  denunciation, 
excommunication,  suppression,  the  loss  of  hon- 
orable positions  have  all  been  used  as  weapons 
by  church  or  university  in  the  attempt  to 
stamp  out  whatever  it  considered  dangerous 
and  subverting  doctrines  of  science. 

The  decisive  battle  was  not  to  be  inaugu- 
rated until  the  latter  half  of  the  nineteenth 
century,  with  the  advent  in  the  field  of  such 
names  in  science  as  Spencer,  Darwin,  Tyndall 
and  Huxley,  and  such  names  in  biblical 
criticism  as  Strauss  and  Renan. 

The  outposts,  it  is  true,  had  been  won  by 
advancing  scientific  thought,  for  step  by  step 
the  Church  had  compromised,  and  had  ad- 
mitted one  scientific  doctrine  after  another 
as  not  incompatible  with  biblical  truth.  But 


BATTLE  OF  MIND  AND  SPIRIT      13 

now,  not  only  theology,  the  imperfect  armor 
in  which  the  spirit  had  been  clothed,  was 
attacked,  but  the  very  existence  of  spirit 
itself  was  to  be  questioned.  The  thinking 
world  was  to  be  divided  into  materialists  and 
supernaturalists.  Now,  at  last,  mind  and  spirit, 
who  in  the  ages  long  gone  had  been  brothers, 
were  to  stand  face  to  face  as  enemies.  Was 
this  mortal  combat  to  end  in  the  annihilation 
of  either,  or  would  this,  too,  end  in  a  compro- 
mise leading  to  harmony? 

At  the  dawn  of  this  century,  in  1812, 
came  into  the  world  its  master  poetic  mind. 
I  say  this  to-day  without  hesitation,  for  no 
other  English  poet  of  the  century  has  been 
so  thoroughly  aware  of  the  intellectual  tenden- 
cies of  his  century,  and  has  so  emotionalized 
them  and  brought  them  before  us  under  the 
humanly  real  conditions  of  dramatic  utter- 
ance. 

It  is  not  surprising,  considering  this  fact, 
that  in  his  second  poem,  written  in  1835, 
Browning  ventures  into  the  arena  and  at 
once  tackles  the  supreme  problem  of  the  age, 
what  is  to  be  the  relation  of  mind  and  spirit? 

It  is  characteristic  of  the  poetic  methods, 
which  dominated  his  work,  that  he  should 
have  presented  this  problem  through  the  per- 
sonality of  a  historical  figure  who  played  no 


14     BROWNING  AND  HIS  CENTURY 

inconsiderable  part  in  the  intellectual  develop- 
ment of  his  time,  though  not  a  man  to  whom 
general  historians  have  been  in  the  habit 
of  assigning  much  space  in  their  pages. 
Browning,  however,  as  Hall  Griffin  informs 
us,  had  been  familiar  with  the  name  of 
Paracelsus  from  his  childhood,  of  whom  he 
had  read  anecdotes  in  a  queer  book,  Wanley's 
"Wonders  of  the  Little  World."  Besides,  his 
father's  library,  wherein  as  a  boy  he  was 
wont  to  browse  constantly,  contained  the 
Opera  Omnia  of  Paracelsus. 

With  the  confidence  of  youth  and  of  genius 
the  poet  attempts  in  this  poem  a  solution 
of  the  problem.  To  mind  he  gives  the 
attribute  of  knowledge,  to  spirit  the  attribute 
of  love. 

The  poem  as  a  whole  does  not  concern  us 
here  except  as  a  background  for  its  final 
thoughts.  In  order,  however,  to  put  the 
situation  clearly  before  readers  not  already 
familiar  with  it,  I  venture  to  transcribe  a 
portion  of  a  former  analysis  of  my  own. 

Paracelsus  aspires  to  the  acquisition  of 
absolute  knowledge  and  feels  born  within 
him  the  capabilities  for  attaining  this  end, 
and,  when  attained,  it  is  to  be  devoted  to 
enlarging  the  possibilities  of  man's  life.  The 
whole  race  is  to  be  elevated  at  once.  Man 


BATTLE  OF  MIND  AND  SPIRIT      15 

may  not  be  doomed  to  cope  with  seraphs, 
yet  by  the  exercise  of  .human  strength  alone 
he  hopes  man  may  one  day  beat  God's  angels. 
He  is  a  revolter,  however,  against  the 
magical  and  alchemistic  methods  of  his  age, 
which  seek  for  the  welfare  of  men  through 
the  elixir  of  youth  or  the  philosopher's  stone. 
He  especially  disclaims  such  puerile  schemes 
in  the  passionate  moment  when  he  has 
realized  how  futile  all  his  lifelong  efforts  have 
been.  He  stands,  indeed,  at  the  threshold 
of  a  new  world.  He  has  a  glimmering  of  the 
true  scientific  methods  which  would  discover 
first  the  secrets  of  life's  laws,  and  then  use 
these  natural  laws  to  bring  about  life's 
betterment,  instead  of  hoping  for  salvation 
through  the  discovery  of  some  magic  secret 
by  means  of  which  life's  laws  might  be  over- 
come. Yet  he  is  sufficiently  of  his  own  super- 
stitious age  to  desire  and  expect  fairly  magical 
results  from  the  laws  he  hopes  to  discover. 
The  creed  which  spurs  him  to  his  quest  is  his 
belief  that  truth  is  inborn  in  the  soul,  but  to 
set  this  truth  free  and  make  it  of  use  to 
mankind  correspondences  in  outer  nature 
must  be  found.  An  intuitive  mind  like  Para- 
celsus's  will  recognize  these  natural  corol- 
laries of  the  intuition  wherever  it  finds  them; 
and  these  are  what  Paracelsus  goes  forth 


16     BROWNING  AND  HIS  CENTURY 

over  the  earth  to  seek  and  find,  sure  he 
will  "arrive."  One  illustration  of  the  results 
so  obtained  is  seen  in  the  doctrine  of  the 
signatures  of  plants  according  to  which  the 
flowers,  leaves,  and  fruits  of  plants  indicate 
by  their  color  or  markings,  etc.,  the  particu- 
lar diseases  they  are  intended  to  cure.  The 
real  Paracelsus  practised  medicine  upon  this 
theory. 

Though  such  methods  are  a  long  distance 
from  those  of  the  modern  scientist,  who 
deduces  his  laws  from  careful  and  patient 
observation  of  nature,  they  go  a  step  toward 
his  in  seeking  laws  in  nature  to  correspond 
to  hypotheses  born  of  intuition. 

Browning's  presentation  of  the  attitude  of 
mind  and  the  place  held  by  Paracelsus  in  the 
development  of  science  is  exactly  in  line  with 
the  most  recent  criticisms  of  this  extraordinary 
man's  life.  According  to  these  he  fluctuated 
between  the  systems  of  magic  then  prevalent 
and  scientific  observation,  but  always  finally 
threw  in  the  balance  of  his  opinion  on  the 
side  of  scientific  ways  of  working;  and  above 
all  made  the  great  step  from  a  belief  in  the 
influence  of  nature  upon  man  to  that  of  the 
existence  of  parallelisms  between  nature  proc- 
esses and  human  processes. 

Though  he  thus  opened  up  new  vistas  for 


BATTLE  OP  MIND  AND  SPIRIT      17 

the  benefit  of  man,  he  must  necessarily  be  a 
failure,  from  his  own  point  of  view,1  with  his 
"India"  not  found,  his  absolute  truth  unat- 
tained;  and  it  is  upon  this  side  that  the  poet 
dwells.  For  a  moment  he  is  somewhat 
reassured  by  the  apparition  of  Aprile,  scarcely 
a  creature  of  flesh  and  blood,  more  the  spirit 
of  art  who  aspires  to  love  infinitely  and  has 
found  the  attainment  of  such  love  as  impos- 
sible as  Paracelsus  has  found  the  attainment 
of  knowledge.  Both  have  desired  to  help 
men,  but  Paracelsus  has  desired  to  help  them 
rather  through  the  perfecting,  even  immortal- 
izing, of  their  physical  being;  Aprile,  through 
giving  man,  as  he  is,  infinite  sympathy  and 
through  creating  forms  of  beauty  which 
would  show  him  his  own  thoughts  and  hopes 
glorified  by  the  all-seeing  touch  of  the  artist. 
Paracelsus  recognizes  his  deficient  sym- 
pathy for  mankind,  and  tries  to  make  up  for 
it  in  his  own  way  by  giving  out  of  the  fulness 
of  his  knowledge  to  men.  The  scornful  and 
proud  reformer  has  not,  however,  truly  learned 
the  lesson  of  love,  and  verily  has  his  reward 
when  he  is  turned  against  by  those  whom  he 
would  teach.  Then  the  old  ideal  seizes  upon 
Tiim  again,  and  still  under  the  influence  of 
Aprile  he  seeks  in  human  experience  the 
loves  and  passions  of  mankind  which  he 


18     BROWNING  AND  HIS  CENTURY 

learns  through  Aprile  he  had  neglected 
for  the  ever-illusive  secret,  but  neither  does 
success  attend  him  here,  and  only  on  his  death- 
bed does  his  vision  clear  up,  and  he  is  made  to 
indulge  in  a  prophetic  utterance  quite  beyond 
the  reach  of  the  original  Paracelsus. 

In  this  passage  is  to  be  found  Browning's 
first  contribution  to  a  solution  of  the  great 
problem.  That  it  is  instinct  with  the  idea  of 
evolution  has  become  a  commonplace  of 
Browning  criticism,  a  fact  which  was  at  least 
independently  or,  as  far  as  I  know,  first 
pointed  out  by  myself  in  an  early  essay 
upon  Browning.  At  the  time,  I  was  reading 
both  Browning  and  Spencer,  and  could  not 
but  be  impressed  by  the  parallelisms  in 
thought  between  the  two,  especially  those  hi 
this  seer-like  passage  and  "The  Data  of 
Ethics." 

Writers  whose  appreciation  of  a  poet  is  in 
direct  ratio  to  the  number  of  exact  historical 
facts  to  be  found  in  a  poem  like  to  emphasize 
this  fact  that  the  doctrine  of  evolution  can 
be  found  in  the  works  of  Paracelsus.  Why 
not?  Since,  as  we  have  seen  it  had  been 
floating  about  in  philosophical  thought  in  one 
form  or  another  for  some  thousands  of  years. 

Indeed,  it  has  been  stated  upon  good 
authority  that  the  idea  of  a  gradual  evolution 


BATTLE  OF  MIND  AND  SPIRIT  ,    19 

according  to  law  and  of  a  God  from  whom 
all  being  emanates,  from  whom  all  power 
proceeds,  is  an  inherent  necessity  of  the  Aryan 
mind  as  opposed  to  the  Semitic  idea  of  an 
outdwelling  God  and  of  supernaturalism. 
Thus,  all  down  the  ages  the  Aryan  mind 
has  revolted  from  time  to  time  against  the 
religious  ideas  superimposed  upon  it  by  the 
Semitic  mind.  This  accounts  for  the  numer- 
ous heresies  within  the  bosom  of  the  Church 
as  well  as  for  the  scientific  advance  against 
the  superstitions  of  the  Church. 

Generalizations  of  this  sweeping  order  are 
apt  to  contain  only  partial  truth.  It  would 
probably  be  nearer  the  whole  truth,  as  we 
are  enabled  to-day  to  trace  historical  devel- 
opment, to  say  that,  starting  with  opposite 
conceptions,  these  two  orders  of  mind  have 
worked  toward  each  other  and  the  harmoniza- 
tion of  their  respective  points  of  view,  and, 
furthermore,  that  this  difference  in  mind 
belongs  to  a  period  prior  even  to  the  emer- 
gence of  the  Aryan  or  the  Semitic.  Re- 
searches in  mythology  and  folklore  seem  to 
indicate  that  no  matter  how  far  back  one 
may  go  in  the  records  of  human  thought 
there  will  be  found  these  two  orders  of  mind  — 
one  which  naturally  thinks  of  the  universe  as 
the  outcome  of  law,  and  one  which  naturally 


20     BROWNING  AND  HIS  CENTURY 

thinks  of  it  as  the  outcome  of  creation.  There 
are  primitive  myths  in  which  mankind  is 
supposed  to  be  descended  from  a  primitive 
ancestor,  which  may  range  all  the  way  from 
a  serpent  to  an  oak  tree,  or,  as  in  a  certain 
Zulu  myth,  a  bed  of  reeds  growing  on  the 
back  of  a  small  animal.  And  there  are  equally 
primitive  myths  in  which  mankind  is  created 
out  of  the  trees  or  the  earth  by  an  external 
agent,  varying  in  importance  from  a  grass- 
hopper to  a  more  or  less  spiritual  being. 

Browning  did  not  need  to  depend  upon 
Paracelsus  for  his  knowledge  of  evolution. 
He  may  not  have  known  that  the  ancient 
Hindu  in  the  dim  mists  of  the  past  had  an 
intuition  of  the  cosmic  egg  from  which  all 
life  had  evolved,  and  that  he  did  not  know 
of  the  theory  as  it  is  developed  in  the  great 
German  philosophers  we  are  certain,  because 
he,  himself,  asseverated  that  he  had  never 
read  the  German  philosophers,  but  it  is  hardly 
possible  that  he  did  not  know  something  of 
it  as  it  appears  in  the  writings  of  the  Greek 
philosophers,  for  Greek  literature  was  among 
the  earliest  of  his  studies.  He  might,  for 
instance,  have  taken  a  hint  from  the  specula- 
tions of  that  half  mythical  marvel  of  a  man, 
Empedocles,  with  which  the  Paracelsus  theory 
of  the  universe,  as  it  appears  in  the  passage 


BATTLE  OF  MIND  AND  SPIRIT      21 

under  discussion,  has  many  points   of   con- 
tact. 

According  to  Empedocles,  the  four  primal 
elements,  earth,  air,  fire  and  water,  are 
worked  upon  by  the  forces  of  love  and  dis- 
cord. By  means  of  these  forces,  out  of  the 
primal  elements  are  evolved  various  and 
horrible  monstrosities  before  the  final  form  of 
perfection  is  reached.  It  is  true  he  did  not 
correctly  imagine  the  stages  in  the  processes 
of  evolution,  for  instead  of  a  gradual  develop- 
ment of  one  form  from  another,  he  describes 
the  process  as  a  haphazard  and  chaotic  one. 
"Many  heads  sprouted  up  without  necks, 
and  naked  arms  went  wandering  forlorn  of 
shoulders,  and  solitary  eyes  were  straying 
destitute  of  foreheads."  These  detached 
portions  of  bodies  coming  together  by  hap- 
hazard produced  the  earlier  monstrous  forms. 
"Many  came  forth  with  double  faces  and  two 
breasts,  some  shaped  like  oxen  with  a  human 
front,  others,  again,  of  human  race  with  a 
bull's  head."  However,  the  latter  part  of  the 
evolutionary  process  as  described  by  Empe- 
docles, when  Love  takes  command,  seems 
especially  pertinent  as  a  possible  source  of 
Browning's  thought: 

"When  strife  has  reached  the  very  bottom  of  the  seething 
mass,  and  love  assumes  her  station  in  the  center  of  the  ball, 


22     BROWNING  AND  HIS  CENTURY 

then  everything  begins  to  come  together,  and  to  form  one 
whole  —  not  instantaneously,  but  different  substances  come 
forth,  according  to  a  steady  process  of  development.  Now, 
when  these  elements  are  mingling,  countless  kinds  of  things 
issue  from  their  union.  Much,  however,  remains  unmixed,  in 
opposition  to  the  mingling  elements,  and  these,  malignant 
strife  still  holds  within  his  grasp.  For  he  has  not  yet  with- 
drawn himself  altogether  to  the  extremities  of  the  globe;  but 
part  of  his  limbs  still  remain  within  its  bounds,  and  part  have 
passed  beyond.  As  strife,  however,  step  by  step  retreats, 
mild  and  innocent  love  pursues  him  with  her  force  divine; 
things  which  had  been  immortal  instantly  assume  mortality; 
the  simple  elements  become  confused  by  interchange  of 
influences.  When  these  are  mingled,  then  the  countless  kinds 
of  mortal  beings  issue  forth,  furnished  with  every  sort  of 
form  —  a  sight  of  wonder. " 

Though  evolution  was  no  new  idea,  it  had 
been  only  a  hypothesis  arrived  at  intuitionally 
or  suggested  by  crude  observations  of  nature 
until  by  perfected  methods  of  historical  study 
and  of  scientific  experimentation  proof  was 
furnished  of  its  truth  as  a  scientific  verity. 

Let  us  glance  at  the  situation  at  the  time 
when  Paracelsus  was  published.  In  1835 
science  had  made  great  strides  in  the  direction 
of  proving  the  correctness  of  the  hypothesis. 
Laplace  had  lived  and  died  and  had  given 
to  the  world  in  mathematical  reasoning  of 
remarkable  power  proof  of  the  nebular  hy- 
pothesis, which  was  later  to  be  verified  by 
Fraunhofer's  discoveries  in  spectrum  analysis. 


BATTLE  OF  MIND  AND  SPIRIT      23 

Lamarck  had  lived  and  died  and  had  given 
to  the  world  his  theory  of  animal  evolution. 
Lyall  in  England  had  shown  that  geological 
formations  were  evolutionary  rather  than 
cataclysmal.  In  fact,  greater  and  lesser  scien- 
tific lights  in  England  and  on  the  continent 
were  every  day  adding  fresh  facts  to  the 
burden  of  proof  in  favor  of  the  hypothesis. 
It  was  in  the  air,  and  denunciations  of  it 
were  in  the  air. 

Most  interesting  of  all,  however,  in  con- 
nection with  our  present  theme  is  the  fact 
that  Herbert  Spencer  was  still  a  lad  of  fifteen, 
who  was  independently  of  Darwin  to  work 
out  a  complete  philosophy  of  evolution, 
which  was  to  be  applied  in  every  department 
of  cosmic,  geologic,  plant,  animal  and  human 
activity,  but  (and  this  is  of  special  interest) 
he  was  not  to  give  to  the  world  his  plan  for 
a  synthetic  philosophy  until  1860,  and  not 
to  publish  his  "First  Principles"  until  1862, 
nor  the  first  instalment  of  the  "Data  of 
Ethics,"  the  fruit  of  his  whole  system,  until 
1879. 

Besides  being  familiar  with  the  idea  as  it 
crops  out  in  Greek  thought,  it  is  impossible 
that  the  young  Browning  was  not  cognizant 
of  the  scientific  attitude  of  the  time.  In 
fact,  he  tells  us  as  much  himself,  for  when 


24     BROWNING  AND  HIS  CENTURY 

Doctor  Wonivall  asked  him  some  questions 
as  to  his  attitude  toward  Darwin,  Browning 
responded  in  a  letter:  "In  reality  all  that 
seems  proved  in  Darwin's  scheme  was  a 
conception  familiar  to  me  from  the  beginning." 

Entirely  familiar  with  the  evolutionary 
idea,  then,  however  he  may  have  derived  it, 
it  is  just  what  might  be  expected  that  he 
should  have  worked  it  into  Paracelsus's  final 
theory  of  life.  The  remarkable  thing  is  that 
he  should  have  applied  its  principles  in  so 
masterly  a  fashion  —  namely,  that  he  should 
have  made  a  complete  philosophical  synthesis 
by  bringing  the  idea  of  evolution  to  bear 
upon  all  natural,  human  and  spiritual  proc- 
esses of  growth  twenty-five  years  before 
Herbert  Spencer,  who  is  regarded  on  this 
particular  ground  as  the  master  mind  of 
the  century,  gave  his  synthetic  philosophy  of 
evolution  to  the  world. 

A  momentary  glance  at  the  passage  in 
question  will  make  this  clear.  Paracelsus 
traces  first  development  as  illustrated  in 
geological  forms: 

"The  center-fire  heaves  underneath  the  earth, 
And  the  earth  changes  like  a  human  face; 
The  molten  one  bursts  up  among  the  rocks, 
Winds  into  the  stone's  heart,  outbranches  bright 
In  hidden  mines,  spots  barren  river  beds, 
Crumbles  into  fine  sand  where  sunbeams  bask. " 


BATTLE  OF  MIND  AND  SPIRIT      25 

Next  he  touches  upon  plant  life  and 
animal  life.  The  grass  grows  bright,  the 
boughs  are  swollen  with  blooms,  ants  make 
their  ado,  birds  fly  in  merry  flocks,  the 
strand  is  purple  with  its  tribe  of  nested 
limpets,  savage  creatures  seek  their  loves  in 
wood  and  plain.  Then  he  shows  how  in  all 
this  animal  life  are  scattered  attributes  fore- 
shadowing a  being  that  will  combine  them. 
Then  appears  primitive  man,  only  half  en- 
lightened, who  gains  knowledge  through  the 
slow,  uncertain  fruit  of  toil,  whose  love  is  not 
serenely  pure,  but  strong  from  weakness,  a 
love  which  endures  and  doubts  and  is  op- 
pressed. And  out  of  the  travail  of  the 
human  soul  as  it  proceeds  from  lower  to  higher 
forms  is  finally  evolved  self-conscious  man  — 
man  who  consciously  looks  back  upon  all 
that  has  preceded  him  and  interprets  nature 
by  means  of  his  own  human  perceptions. 
The  winds  are  henceforth  voices,  wailing  or 
a  shout,  a  querulous  mutter  or  a  quick,  gay 
laugh,  never  a  senseless  gust,  now  man  is 
born. 

But  development  does  not  end  with  the 
attainment  of  this  self -consciousness.  After 
this  stage  has  been  reached  there  continues 
an  evolution  which  is  distinctively  spiritual,  a 
tendency  to  God,  Browning  was  not  content 


26     BROWNING  AND  HIS  CENTURY 

with  the  evolution  of  man,  he  was  prophetic 
of  the  final  flowering  of  man  in  the  superman, 
although  he  had  never  heard  of  Nietszche. 

The  corollary  to  this  progressive  theory 
of  life,  a  view  held  by  scientific  thinkers,  is 
that  sin  is  not  depravity,  but  is  merely  a 
lack  of  development.  Paracelsus  is  therefore 
made  wise  to  know  even  hate  is  but  a  mask  of 
love,  to  see  a  good  in  evil,  a  hope  in  ill-success, 
to  sympathize,  even  be  proud  of  man's  half- 
reasons,  faint  aspirings,  dim  struggles  for 
truth  —  all  with  a  touch  of  nobleness  despite 
their  error,  upward  tending  all,  though  weak. 

Though  there  are  points  of  contact  be- 
tween the  thought  of  the  true  Paracelsus  and 
of  Browning,  the  points  of  contact  between 
Spencer  and  Browning  are  far  more  significant, 
for  Browning  seems  intuitively  to  have  per- 
ceived the  fundamental  truths  of  social  and 
psychic  evolution  at  the  early  age  of  twenty- 
three  —  truths  which  the  philosopher  worked 
out  only  after  years  of  laborious  study. 

We,  who,  to-day,  are  familiar  with  the 
application  of  the  theory  of  evolution  to  every 
object  from  a  dustpan  to  a  flying  machine, 
can  hardly  throw  ourselves  into  the  atmos- 
phere of  the  first  half  of  the  last  century 
when  this  dynamic  ideal  was  flung  into  a 
world  with  static  ideals.  The  Christian  world 


BATTLE  OF  MIND  AND  SPIRIT      27 

knew  little  and  cared  less  about  the  guesses 
of  Greek  philosophers,  whom  they  regarded 
when  they  did  know  about  them  as  unre- 
generate  pagans.  German  thought  was  cavi- 
are to  the  general,  and  what  new  thought  of  a 
historical  or  scientific  nature  made  its  way 
into  the  strongholds  of  conservatism  filled 
people  with  suspicion  and  dread.  Such  a 
sweeping  synthesis,  therefore,  as  Browning 
gives  of  dawning  scientific  theories  in  Para- 
celsus was  truly  phenomenal.  That  it  did 
not  prove  a  bone  of  contention  and  arouse 
controversies  as  hot  as  those  which  were 
waged  later  around  such  scientific  leaders  as 
Spencer,  Darwin,  Huxley,  and  Clifford  was 
probably  due  to  the  circumstance  that  the 
poem  was  little  read  and  less  understood, 
and  also  to  the  fact  that  it  contained  other 
elements  which  overlaid  the  bare  presentation 
of  the  doctrines  of  evolution. 

So  far  I  have  spoken  only  of  the  form  of  the 
Paracelsus  theory  of  life,  but  a  theory  of  life 
to  be  complete  must  have  soul  as  well  as 
form.  Only  in  adding  the  soul  side  to  his 
theory  of  life  does  Browning  really  give  his 
solution  of  the  problem,  what  is  to  be  the 
relation  of  mind  and  spirit? 

One  other  point  of  resemblance  is  to  be 
noted  between  the  thought  of  Browning's 


28     BROWNING  AND  HIS  CENTURY 

Paracelsus  and  Herbert  Spencer.  They  agree 
that  ultimate  knowledge  is  beyond  the  grasp 
of  the  intellect.  Neither  was  this  a  new 
idea;  but  up  to  the  time  of  Spencer  it  was 
taken  simply  as  a  negative  conclusion.  Spen- 
cer, however,  having  found  this  negation 
makes  it  the  body  of  his  philosophy  —  a  body 
so  shadowy  that  many  of  his  critics  consider 
it  too  ghostly  to  stand  as  a  substantial  basis 
for  philosophical  thought.  He  regards  the 
failure  of  the  intellect  to  picture  the  nature 
of  the  absolute  as  the  most  certain  proof  that 
our  intuitions  of  its  existence  are  trustworthy, 
and  upon  this  he  bases  all  religious  aspiration. 
Like  the  psalmist,  he  exclaims,  "Who  by 
searching  can  find  out  God?" 

The  attitude  of  Paracelsus  is  identical  as 
far  as  the  intellect  is  concerned.  His  life, 
spent  in  the  search  for  knowledge,  had  proved 
it  to  him.  But  he  does  not,  like  Spencer, 
make  it  the  body  of  his  philosophy.  Through 
the  influence  of  Aprile  he  is  led  to  a  definite 
conception  of  the  Infinite  as  a  Being  whose 
especial  characteristic  is  that  he  feels !  —  feels 
unbounded  joy  in  his  own  creations.  This 
is  eminently  an  artist's  or  poet's  perception 
of  the  relation  of  God  to  his  universe.  As 
Aprile  in  one  place  says,  "God  is  the  perfect 
poet,  who  in  his  person  acts  his  own  creations." 


BATTLE  OF  MIND  AND  SPIRIT      29 

As  I  have  already  pointed  out,  the  evil  of 
pain,  of  decay,  of  degeneration  is  taken  no 
account  of. 

There  is  the  constant  passing  onward 
from  joy  to  joy.  All  the  processes  of  nature 
from  the  simplest  to  the  most  complex  bring, 
in  their  turn,  a  delight  to  their  Creator  until 
man  appears,  and  is  not  only  a  joy  to  his 
Creator,  but  is  the  first  in  the  order  of  creation 
to  share  in  the  joy  of  existence,  the  first  to 
arrive  at  the  full  consciousness  of  beauty. 
So  overwhelming  is  this  consciousness  of 
beauty  that  man  perceives  it  struggling  for 
expression  in  the  hates  and  fallacies  of  unde- 
veloped natures. 

All  this  is  characteristic  of  the  artistic  way 
of  looking  at  life.  The  artist  is  prone  either 
to  ignore  the  ugly  or  to  transmute  it  by  art 
into  something  possessing  beauty  of  power 
if  not  of  loveliness.  What  are  plays  like 
"Hamlet"  and  "Macbeth,"  "Brand"  and 
"Peer  Gynt,"  music  like  "Tristan  and  Isolde" 
or  the  "Pathetic  Symphony,"  Rodin's  statues, 
but  actual,  palpable  realizations  of  the  fact 
that  hate  is  but  a  mask  of  love,  or  that  human 
fallacies  and  human  passions  have  within 
them  the  seeds  of  immense  beauty  if  only 
there  appear  the  artist  who  can  bring  them 
forth.  If  this  is  true  of  the  human  artist, 


30     BROWNING  AND  HIS  CENTURY 

how  much  more  is  it  true  of  the  divine  artist 
in  whose  shadow,  as  Pompilia  says,  even  a 
Guido  may  find  healing. 

The  optimism  of  such  a  theory  of  existence 
is  intoxicating.  Not  only  does  this  artist- 
man  look  backward  and  rejoice  in  all  the 
beauty  of  past  phases  of  creation,  but  he 
looks  forward  to  endless  progression  in  the 
enjoyment  of  fresh  phases  of  beauty  —  "a 
flying  point  of  bliss  remote."  This  is  a 
universe  in  which  the  Prometheus  of  the 
old  myths  is  indeed  unbound.  Mankind  is 
literally  free  to  progress  forever  upward.  If 
there  are  some  men  in  darkness,  they  are  like 
plants  in  mines  struggling  to  break  out  into 
the  sunlight  they  see  beyond. 

The  interesting  question  arises  here,  was 
Browning,  himself,  entirely  responsible  for 
the  soul  of  his  Paracelsus  theory  of  life  or 
was  there  some  source  beyond  him  from 
which  he  drew  inspiration? 

It  has  frequently  been  suggested  that 
Aprile  in  this  poem  is  a  sort  of  symbolic 
representation  of  Shelley.  Why  not  rather 
a  composite  of  both  Shelley  and  Keats,  the 
poet  of  love  and  the  poet  of  beauty?  An 
examination  of  the  greatest  poems  of  these  two 
writers,  "Prometheus  Unbound"  and  "Hy- 
perion, "  will  bring  out  the  elements  in  both 


BATTLE  OF  MIND  AND  SPIRIT      31 

which  I  believe  entered  into  Browning's  con- 
ception. 

In  the  exalted  symbolism  of  the  "Pro- 
metheus Unbound"  Shelley  shows  that,  in 
his  view,  evil  and  suffering  were  not  inherent 
in  the  nature  of  things,  the  tyranny  of  evil 
having  gained  its  ascendancy  through  the 
persistence  of  out-worn  ideals,  such  as  that  of 
Power  or  Force  symbolized  in  the  Greek  idea 
of  Jupiter.  Prometheus  is  the  revolting  mind 
of  mankind,  enslaved  by  the  tyranny  of 
Jupiter,  hating  the  tyrant,  yet  determined 
to  endure  all  the  tyrant  can  inflict  upon  him 
rather  than  admit  his  right  to  rule.  The 
freeing  of  Prometheus  and  the  dethrone- 
ment of  Jupiter  come  through  the  awak- 
ening in  the  heart  of  Prometheus  of  pity 
for  the  tyrant  —  that  is,  Prometheus  has 
learned  to  love  his  enemies  as  he  loves 
his  friends.  The  remainder  of  the  poem  is 
occupied  with  showing  the  effects  upon 
humanity  of  this  universal  awakening  of 
love. 

In  the  fine  passage  where  the  Spirit  of 
the  Earth  hears  the  trumpet  of  the  Spirit  of 
the  Hour  sound  in  a  great  city,  it  beholds 
all  ugly  human  shapes  and  visages  which  had 
caused  it  pain  pass  floating  through  the  air, 
and  fading  still 


32     BROWNING  AND  HIS  CENTURY 

"Into  the  winds  that  scattered  them,  and  those 
From  whom  they  passed  seemed  mild  and  lovely  forms 
After  some  foul  disguise  had  fallen,  and  all 
Were  somewhat  changed,  and  after  brief  surprise 
And  greetings  of  delighted  wonder,  all 
Went  to  their  sleep  again. " 

And  the  Spirit  of  the  Hour  relates: 

"Soon  as  the  sound  had  ceased  whose  thunder  filled 
The  abysses  of  the  sky  and  the  wide  earth, 
There  was  a  change:  the  impalpable  thin  air 
And  the  all-circling  sunlight  were  transformed 
As  if  the  sense  of  love  dissolved  in  them 
Had  folded  itself  around  the  sphered  world. " 

In  the  meantime,  the  over-souls  of  human- 
ity —  Prometheus,  symbolic  of  thought  or 
knowledge,  is  reunited  to  Asia,  his  spouse, 
symbolic  of  Nature  or  emotion,  from  whom 
he  has  long  been  separated  and  together  with 
Asia's  sisters,  Panthea  and  lone  —  retire 
to  the  wonderful  cave  where  they  are  hence- 
forth to  dwell  and  where  their  occupations 
are  inspired  by  the  most  childlike  and  exalted 
moods  of  the  soul. 

Before  considering  the  bearing  of  their  life 
of  love  and  art  in  the  cave  upon  the  character 
of  Aprile  let  us  turn  our  attention  for  a 
moment  to  a  remarkable  passage  in  "Hype- 
rion," which  poem  was  written  as  far  back 
as  1820.  Keats,  like  Shelley,  deals  with  the 


BATTLE  OF  MIND  AND  SPIRIT      33 

dethronement  of  gods,  but  it  is  the  older 
dynasty  of  Titans  —  Saturn  and  Hyperion 
usurped  by  Jupiter  and  Apollo.  Shelley's 
thought  in  the  "Prometheus"  is  strongly 
influenced  by  Christian  ideals,  but  Keats's 
is  thoroughly  Greek. 

The  passing  of  one  series  of  gods  and  the 
coming  into  power  of  another  series  of  gods 
was  a  familiar  idea  in  Greek  mythology.  It 
reflected  at  once  the  literal  fact  that  ever 
higher  and  higher  forces  of  nature  had  been 
deified  by  them,  beginning  with  crude  Nature 
gods  and  ending  with  symbols  of  the  most 
ideal  human  attributes,  and  at  the  same  time 
that  their  thought  leaned  in  the  direction  of 
interpreting  nature  as  an  evolutionary  proc- 
ess. Seizing  upon  this,  Keats  has  presented 
in  the  words  of  the  old  Titan  Oceanus  a 
theory  of  the  evolution  of  beauty  quite  as 
startling  as  a  prophecy  of  psychological 
theories  upon  this  subject  as  Browning's  is 
of  cosmic  and  social  theories.  Addressing 
Saturn,  Oceanus  says: 

We  fall  by  course  of  Nature's  law,  not  force 
Of  thunder,  or  of  love.     .     .     . 

.     .     .     As  thou  wast  not  the  first  of  powers 
So  art  thou  not  the  last;  it  cannot  be: 
From  chaos  and  parental  darkness  came 
Light,  the  first  fruits  of  that  intestine  broil, 


34     BROWNING  AND  HIS  CENTURY 

That  sullen  ferment,  which  for  wondrous  ends 
Was  ripening  in  itself.    The  ripe  hour  came 
And  with  it  light,  and  light,  engendering 
Upon  its  own  producer,  forthwith  touched, 
The  whole  enormous  matter  into  life. 
Upon  that  very  hour,  our  parentage 
The  Heavens  and  the  Earth  were  manifest; 
Then  thou  first-born,  and  we  the  giant-race, 
Found  ourselves  ruling  new  and  beauteous  realms 


As  Heaven  and  Earth  are  fairer  far 

Than  chaos  and  blank  darkness,  though  once  chiefs, 

And  as  we  show  beyond  that  Heaven  and  Earth 

In  form  and  shape  compact  and  beautiful, 

In  will,  in  action  free,  companionship 

And  thousand  other  signs  of  purer  life, 

So  on  our  heels  a  fresh  perfection  treads, 

A  power  more  strong  in  beauty,  born  of  us 

And  fated  to  excel  us,  as  we  pass 

In  glory  that  old  darkness:  nor  are  we 

Thereby  more  conquered  than  by  us  the  rule 

Of  shapeless  chaos.    For  'tis  the  eternal  law 

That  first  in  beauty  should  be  first  in  might. 

Yea,  by  that  law,  another  race  may  drive 

Our  conquerors  to  mourn  as  we  do  now. " 

There  is  in  the  attitude  of  Oceanus  a 
magnificent  acceptance  of  this  ruthless  course 
of  nature  reminding  one  of  that  taken  by  such 
men  as  Huxley  and  Clifford  in  the  face  of 
their  own  scientific  discoveries,  but  one  is 


BATTLE  OF  MIND  AND  SPIRIT      35 

immediately  struck  by  the  absence  of  love 
in  the  idea.  An  Apollo,  no  matter  what 
new  beauty  he  may  have,  himself,  to  offer, 
who  yet  disregards  the  beauty  of  Hyperion 
and  calmly  accepts  the  throne  of  the  sun 
in  his  stead,  does  not  satisfy  us.  What 
unreason  it  is  that  so  splendid  a  being  as 
Hyperion  should  be  deposed!  As  a  matter 
of  fact,  he  was  not  deposed.  He  is  left 
standing  forever  in  our  memories  in  splendor 
like  the  morn,  for  Keats  did  not  finish  the 
poem  and  no  picture  of  the  enthroned  Apollo 
is  given.  Perhaps  Keats  remembered  his 
earlier  utterance,  "A  thing  of  beauty  is  a 
joy  forever,"  and  cared  for  his  own  Hyperion 
too  much  to  banish  him  for  the  sake  of 
Apollo. 

Be  that  as  it  may,  the  points  in  relation  to 
our  subject  are  that  Shelley's  emphasis 
is  upon  the  conservation  of  beauty,  while 
Keats's  emphasis  is  upon  the  evolution  of 
new  beauty. 

In  the  cave  where  Prometheus  and  Asia 
dwell  —  the  cave  of  universal  spirit  —  is  given 
forth  the  inspiration  to  humanity  for  painting, 
poetry  and  arts,  yet  to  be  born,  and  all  these 
arts  return  to  delight  them,  fashioned  into 
form  by  human  artists.  Love  is  the  ruling 
principle.  Therefore  all  forms  of  beautiful 


36     BROWNING  AND  HIS  CENTURY 

art  are  immortal.  Aprile,*  as  he  first  appears, 
is  an  elaboration  upon  this  idea.  He  would 
love  all  humanity  with  such  intensity  that  he 
would  immortalize  in  all  forms  of  art  —  paint- 
ing, poetry,  music  —  every  thought  and  emo- 
tion of  which  the  human  soul  is  capable,  and 
this  done  he  would  say: 

"His  spirits  created  — 
God  grants  to  each  a  sphere  to  be  its  world, 
Appointed  with  the  various  objects  needed 
To  satisfy  its  own  peculiar  want; 
So,  I  create  a  world  for  these  my  shapes 
Fit  to  sustain  their  beauty  and  their  strength. " 

In  short,  he  would  found  a  universal  art 
museum  exactly  like  the  cave  in  which  Pro- 
metheus dwelt.  The  stress  is  no  more  than 
it  is  in  Shelley  upon  a  search  for  new  beauty, 
and  there  is  not  a  hint  that  a  coming  beauty 
shall  blot  out  the  old  until  Aprile  recognizes 
Paracelsus  as  his  king.  Then  he  awakes  to 
the  fact  that  his  own  ideal  has  been  partial, 


*The  influence  of  the  "Prometheus  Unbound"  upon  the  con- 
ception of  Aprile's  character  was  first  brought  forward  by  the  writer 
in  a  paper  read  before  the  Boston  Browning  Society,  March  15, 
1910,  a  typewritten  copy  of  which  was  placed  in  the  Browning  alcove 
in  the  Boston  Public  Library.  In  the  "Life  of  Browning,"  published 
the  same  year  and  not  read  by  the  writer  until  recently,  Mr.  Hall 
Griffin  touches  upon  the  same  thought  in  the  following  words: 
"From  some  elements  in  the  myth  of  Prometheus  Browning  unmis- 
takably evolved  the  conception  of  his  Aprile  as  not  only  the  lover  and 
the  poet  but  as  the  potential  sculptor,  painter,  orator,  and  musician. " 


BATTLE  OF  MIND  AND  SPIRIT     37 

because  he  has  not  been  a  seeker  after  knowl- 
edge, or  new  beauty,  and  in  much  the  same 
spirit  as  Oceanus,  he  exclaims: 

"Lo,  I  forget  my  ruin,  and  rejoice 
In  thy  success,  as  thou!    Let  our  God's  praise 
Go  bravely  through  the  world  at  last!    What  care 
Through  me  or  thee?" 

But  Paracelsus  had  learned  a  lesson  through 
Aprile  which  the  Apollo  of  Keats  had  not 
learned.  He  does  not  accept  kingship  at  the 
expense  of  Aprile  as  Apollo  would  do  at  the 
expense  of  Hyperion.  He  includes  in  his 
final  theory  of  life  all  that  is  beautiful  in 
Aprile's  or  Shelley's  ideal  and  adds  to  it  all 
that  is  beautiful  of  the  Keats  ideal.  The  form 
of  his  philosophy  is  evolutionary,  and  up  to  the 
time  of  his  meeting  with  Aprile  had  expressed 
itself  as  the  search  for  knowledge.  Through 
Aprile  his  philosophy  becomes  imbued  with 
soul,  the  attributes  of  which  are  the  spirit  of 
love  and  the  spirit  of  beauty,  one  of  which 
conserves  and  immortalizes  beauty,  the  other 
of  which  searches  out  new  beauty. 

So,  working  hand  in  hand,  they  become  one, 
while  the  search  for  knowledge,  thus  spiritual- 
ized, becomes  the  search  for  beauty  always 
inspired  by  love.  The  aim  of  the  evolutionary 
process  thus  becomes  the  unfolding  of  ever 


38     BROWNING  AND  HIS  CENTURY 

new  phases  of  beauty  in  which  God  takes 
endless  delight,  and  to  the  final  enjoyment  of 
which  mankind  shall  attain. 

To  sum  up,  Browning's  solution  of  the 
problem  in  the  Paracelsus  theory  of  life  is 
reached  not  only  through  a  synthesis  of  the 
doctrines  of  evolution  as  applied  to  universal 
activities,  cosmic  and  human,  prophetic,  on 
the  one  hand,  of  the  most  advanced  scientific 
thought  of  the  century,  but  it  is  a  synthesis 
of  these  and  of  the  art-spirit  in  its  twofold 
aspect  of  love  and  beauty  as  already  expressed 
in  the  poetry  of  Shelley  and  Keats. 

It  is  not  in  the  least  probable  that  Brown- 
ing set  to  work  consciously  to  piece  together 
these  ideals.  That  is  not  the  method  of  the 
artist!  But  being  familiar  to  him  in  the  two 
best  beloved  poets  of  his  youth,  they  had 
sunk  into  his  very  being,  and  welled  forth 
from  his  own  subconsciousness,  charged  with 
personal  emotion,  partly  dramatic,  partly  the 
expression  of  his  own  true  feeling  at  the  time, 
and  the  result  be  it  said  is  one  of  the  most 
inspiring  and  beautiful  passages  in  English 
poetry. 

At  the  end  of  his  life  and  the  end  of  the 
century  Herbert  Spencer,  who  had  spent 
years  of  labor  to  prove  the  fallacies  in  all 
religious  dogmas,  and  who  had  insisted  upon 


PARACELSUS 


BATTLE  OF  MIND  AND  SPIRIT      39 

religion's  being  entirely  relegated  to  intellectu- 
ally unknowable  regions  of  thought,  spoke  in 
his  autobiography  of  the  mysteries  inherent 
in  life,  in  the  evolution  of  human  beings,  in 
consciousness,  in  human  destiny  —  mysteries 
that  the  very  advance  of  science  makes  more 
and  more  evident,  exhibits  as  more  and  more 
profound  and  impenetrable,  adding: 

"Thus  religious  creeds,  which  in  one  way  or  other  occupy 
the  sphere  that  rational  interpretation  seeks  to  occupy  and 
fails,  and  fails  the  more,  the  more  it  seeks,  I  have  come  to 
regard  with  a  sympathy  based  on  community  of  need:  feeling 
that  dissent  from  them  results  from  inability  to  accept  the 
solutions  offered,  joined  with  the  wish  that  solutions  could 
be  found. " 

Loyal  to  the  last  to  his  determination  to 
accept  as  knowledge  only  what  the  intellect 
could  prove,  he  never  permitted  himself  to 
come  under  the  awakening  influence  of  an 
Aprile,  yet  like  Browning's  ancient  Greek, 
Cleon,  he  longed  for  a  solution  of  the  mystery. 

At  the  dawn  of  the  century,  and  in  his 
youth,  Browning  ventured  upon  a  solution. 
In  the  remainder  of  this  and  the  next  chapter 
I  shall  attempt  to  show  what  elements  in 
this  solution  the  poet  retained  to  the  end  of 
his  life,  how  his  thought  became  modified, 
and  what  relation  his  final  solution  bears  to 
the  final  thought  of  the  century. 


40     BROWNING  AND  HIS  CENTURY 

In  this  first  attempt  at  a  synthesis  of  life 
in  which  the  attributes  peculiar  to  the  mind 
and  to  the  spirit  are  brought  into  harmonious 
relationship,  Browning  is  more  the  intuition- 
alist  than  the  scientist.  His  convictions  well 
forth  with  all  the  force  of  an  inborn  revelation, 
just  as  kindred  though  much  less  rational 
views  of  nature's  processes  sprang  up  in  the 
mind  of  the  ancient  Hindu  or  the  ancient 
Greek. 

The  philosophy  of  life  herein  flashed  out 
by  the  poet  was  later  to  be  elaborated  fully 
on  its  objective  or  observational  side  by 
Spencer  —  the  philosopher  par  excellence  of 
evolution  —  and  finally,  also,  of  course,  on 
the  objective  side,  to  become  an  assured  fact 
of  science  through  the  publication  in  1859 
of  Darwin's  epoch-making  book,  "The  Origin 
of  Species,"  wherein  the  laws,  so  disturbing 
to  many  at  the  time,  of  natural  selection  and 
the  survival  of  the  fittest  were  fully  set  forth. 

While  the  genetic  view  of  nature,  as  the 
phraseology  of  to-day  goes,  had  been  antici- 
pated in  writers  on  cosmology  like  Leibnitz 
and  Laplace,  in  geology  by  such  men  as 
Hutton  and  Lyall,  and  had  entered  into  the 
domain  of  embryology  through  the  researches 
of  Von  Baer,  and  while  Spencer  had  already 
formulated  a  philosophy  of  evolution,  Darwin 


BATTLE  OF  MIND  AND  SPIRIT      41 

went  out  into  the  open  and  studied  the  actual 
facts  in  the  domain  of  living  beings.  His 
studies  made  evolution  a  certainty.  They 
revealed  the  means  by  which  its  processes 
were  accomplished,  and  in  so  doing  pointed 
to  an  origin  of  man  entirely  opposed  to  ortho- 
dox views  upon  this  subject.  Thus  was  in- 
augurated the  last  great  phase  in  the  struggle 
between  mind  and  spirit. 

Henceforth,  science  stood  completely  re- 
vealed as  the  unflinching  searcher  of  truth. 
Intuition  was  but  a  handmaid  whose  duty 
was  to  formulate  working  hypotheses,  to 
become  scientific  law  if  provable  by  investi- 
gation or  experiment,  to  be  discarded  if 
not. 

The  aspects  which  this  battle  has  assumed 
in  the  latter  half  of  the  century  have  been 
many  and  various.  Older  sciences  with  a 
new  lease  of  life  and  sciences  entirely  new 
have  advanced  along  the  path  pointed  out 
by  the  doctrines  of  evolution.  Battalions  of 
determined  men  have  held  aloft  the  banner  of 
uncompromising  truth.  Each  battalion  has 
stormed  truth's  citadel  only  to  find  that 
about  its  inmost  reality  is  an  impregnable 
wall.  The  utmost  which  has  been  attained 
in  any  case  is  a  working  hypothesis,  useful 
in  bringing  to  light  many  new  objective  phe- 


42     BROWNING  AND  HIS  CENTURY 

nomena,  it  is  true,  but,  in  the  end,  serving 
only  to  deepen  the  mystery  inherent  in  the 
nature  of  all  things. 

Such  a  working  hypothesis  was  the  earlier 
one  of  gravitation  whose  laws  of  action 
were  elaborated  by  Sir  Isaac  Newton,  and 
by  the  great  mind  of  Laplace  were  still 
further  developed  with  marvelous  math- 
ematical precision  in  his  "Mechanique  Cel- 
este." 

Such  another  hypothesis  is  that  of  the 
atomic  theory  of  the  constitution  of  matter 
usually  associated  with  the  name  of  Dalton, 
though  it  has  undergone  many  modifications 
from  other  scientific  thinkers.  Of  this  hy- 
pothesis Theodore  Merz  writes  in  his  history 
of  nineteenth-century  scientific  thought: 

"As  to  the  nature  of  the  differences  of  the  elements,  the 
atomic  view  gives  no  information;  it  simply  asserts  these 
differences,  assumes  them  as  physical  constants,  and  tries 
to  describe  them  by  number  and  measurement.  The 
atomic  view  is  therefore  at  best  only  a  provisional  basis,  a 
convenient  resting  place,  similar  to  that  which  Newton  found 
in  physical  astronomy,  and  on  which  has  been  established 
the  astronomical  view  of  nature. " 

The  vibratory  theories  of  the  ether,  the 
theories  of  the  conservation  of  energy,  the 
vitalistic  view  of  life,  the  theory  of  parallel- 
ism of  physical  and  psychical  phenomena  are 


BATTLE  OF  MIND  AND  SPIRIT      43 

all  such  hypotheses.  They  have  been  of  incal- 
culable value  in  helping  to  a  larger  knowledge 
of  the  appearances  of  things,  and  in  the 
formation  of  laws  of  action  and  reaction,  but 
in  no  way  have  they  aided  in  revealing  the 
inner  or  transcendent  realities  of  the  myriad 
manifestations  of  nature  and  life! 

During  the  last  half  of  the  century  this 
truth  has  forced  itself  with  ever  increasing 
power  upon  the  minds  of  scientists,  and  has 
resulted  in  many  divisions  among  the  ranks. 
Some  rest  upon  phenomena  as  the  final 
reality;  hence  materialistic  or  mechanical 
views  of  life.  Some  believe  that  the  only 
genuine  reality  is  the  one  undiscoverable  by 
science;  hence  new  presentations  of  meta- 
physical views  of  life. 

During  these  decades  the  solid  phalanx  of 
religious  believers  has  continued  to  watch 
from  its  heights  with  more  or  less  of  fear  the 
advance  of  science.  Here,  too,  there  has  been 
division  in  the  ranks.  Many  denounced  the 
scientists  as  the  destroyers  of  religion;  others 
like  the  good  Bishop  Colenso  could  write 
such  words  as  these  in  1873:  "Bless  God 
devoutly  for  the  gift  of  modern  science";  and 
who  ten  years  earlier  had  expressed  satisfac- 
tion in  the  fact  that  superstitious  belief  in 
the  letter  of  the  Bible  was  giving  way  to  a 


44     BROWNING  AND  HIS  CENTURY 

true  appreciation  of  the  real  value  of  the 
ancient  Hebrew  Scriptures  as  containing  the 
dawn  of  religious  light. 

From  another  quarter  came  the  critical 
students  of  the  Bible,  who  subjected  its  con- 
tents to  the  keen  tests  of  historical  and 
archaeological  study.  Serene,  above  all  the 
turmoil,  was  the  small  band  of  genuine  phil- 
osophers who,  like  Browning's  own  musician, 
Abt  Vogler,  knew  the  very  truth.  No  matter 
what  disturbing  facts  may  be  brought  to 
light  by  science,  be  it  man's  descent  from 
Anthropoids  or  a  mechanical  view  of  sensa- 
tion, they  continue  to  dwell  unshaken  in  the 
light  of  a  transcendent  truth  which  reaches 
them  through  some  other  avenue  than  that 
of  the  mind. 

Browning  belonged  by  nature  in  this  last 
group.  Already  in  "Sordello"  his  attention 
is  turned  to  the  development  of  the  soul,  and 
from  that  time  on  to  the  end  of  his  career  he 
is  the  champion  of  the  soul-side  of  existence 
with  all  that  it  implies  of  character  develop- 
ment—  "little  else  being  worth  study,"  as 
he  declared  in  his  introduction  to  a  second 
edition  of  the  poem  written  twenty  years 
after  its  first  appearance. 

On  this  rock,  the  human  soul,  he  takes 
his  stand,  and,  though  all  the  complex  waves 


BATTLE  OF  MIND  AND  SPIRIT      45 

of  the  tempest  of  nineteenth-century  thought 
break  against  his  feet,  he  remains  firm. 

Beginning  with  "Sordello,"  it  is  no  longer 
evolution  as  applied  to  every  aspect  of  the 
universe  but  evolution  as  applied  to  the 
human  spirit  which  has  his  chief  interest. 
Problems  growing  out  of  the  marvelous  de- 
velopments of  such  sciences  as  astronomy, 
geology,  physics,  chemistry  or  biology  do 
not  enter  into  the  main  body  of  the  poet's 
thought,  though  there  are  allusions  many  and 
exact  which  show  his  familiarity  with  the 
growth  of  these  various  objective  sciences 
during  his  life. 

During  all  the  middle  years  of  his  poetic 
career  the  relations  of  the  mind  and  the 
spirit  seemed  to  fascinate  Browning,  espe- 
cially upon  the  side  of  the  problems  connected 
with  the  supernatural  bases  of  religious 
experience.  These  are  the  problems  which 
grew  out  of  that  phase  of  scholarly  advance 
represented  by  biblical  criticism. 

Such  a  poem  as  "Saul,"  for  example, 
though  full  of  a  humanity  and  tenderness,  as 
well  as  of  a  sheer  poetic  beauty,  which  endear 
it  alike  to  those  who  appreciate  little  more 
than  the  content  of  the  poem,  and  to  those 
whose  appreciation  is  that  of  the  connoisseur 
in  poetic  art,  is  nevertheless  an  interpretation 


46     BROWNING  AND  HIS  CENTURY 

of  the  origin  of  prophecy,  especially  of  the 
Messianic  idea,  which  places  Browning  in 
the  van  of  the  thought  of  the  century  on  ques- 
tions connected  with  biblical  criticism. 

At  the  time  when  "Saul"  was  written,  1845, 
modern  biblical  criticism  had  certainly  gained 
very  little  hearing  in  England,  for  even  as  late 
as  1862  Bishop  Colenso's  enlightened  book 
on  the  Pentateuch  was  received,  as  one  writer 
expresses  it,  with  "almost  unanimous  disap- 
probation and  widespread  horror." 

Critics  of  the  Bible  there  had  been  since 
the  seventeenth  century,  but  they  had  pro- 
duced a  confused  mass  of  stuff  in  their  attacks 
upon  the  authenticity  of  the  Bible  against 
which  the  orthodox  apologists  had  succeeded 
in  holding  their  own.  At  the  end  of  the 
eighteenth  and  the  dawn  of  the  nineteenth 
century  came  the  more  systematic  criticism 
of  German  scholars,  echoes  of  whose  theories 
found  their  way  into  England  through  the 
studies  of  such  men  as  Pusey.  But  these, 
though  they  gave  full  consideration  to  the 
foremost  of  the  German  critics  of  the  day, 
ranged  themselves,  for  the  most  part,  on  the 
side  of  orthodoxy. 

Eichhorn,  one  of  the  first  of  the  Germans 
to  be  studied  in  England,  had  found  a  point 
of  departure  in  the  celebrated  "Wolfenbiittel 


BATTLE  OF  MIND  AND  SPIRIT     47 

Fragments,"  which  had  been  printed  by 
Lessing  from  manuscripts  by  an  unknown 
writer  Reimarus  discovered  in  the  Wolfen- 
btittel  library.  These  fragments  represent 
criticism  of  the  sweepingly  destructive  order, 
characteristic  of  what  has  been  called  the  nat- 
uralistic school.  Although  Eichhorn  agreed 
with  the  writer  of  the  "Fragments"  that  the 
biblical  narratives  should  be  divested  of  all 
their  supernatural  aspects,  he  did  not  inter- 
pret the  supernatural  elements  as  simply 
frauds  designed  to  deceive  in  order  that 
personal  ends  might  be  gained.  He  restored 
dignity  to  the  narrative  by  insisting  at  once 
upon  its  historical  verity  and  upon  a  natural 
interpretation  of  the  supernatural  —  "a  spon- 
taneous illumination  reflected  from  antiquity 
itself,"  which  might  result  from  primitive  mis- 
understanding of  natural  phenomena,  from 
the  poetical  embellishment  of  facts,  or  the 
symbolizing  of  an  idea. 

Doctor  Paulus,  in  his  commentary  on  the 
Gospels  (1800),  carried  the  idea  still  farther, 
and  the  rationalistic  school  of  Bible  criticism 
became  an  assured  fact,  though  Kant  at  this 
time  developed  an  entirely  different  theory 
of  Bible  interpretation,  which  in  a  sense 
harked  back  to  the  older  allegorical  interpre- 
tation of  the  Bible. 


48     BROWNING  AND  HIS  CENTURY 

He  did  not  trouble  himself  at  all  about  the 
historical  accuracy  of  the  narratives.  He  was 
concerned  only  in  discovering  the  idea  under- 
lying the  stories,  the  moral  gist  of  them  in 
relation  to  human  development.  With  the 
naturalists  and  the  rationalists,  he  put  aside 
any  idea  of  Divine  revelation.  It  was  the 
moral  aspiration  of  the  authors,  themselves, 
which  threw  a  supernatural  glamour  over  their 
accounts  of  old  traditions  and  turned  them 
into  symbols  of  life  instead  of  merely  records 
of  bona  fide  facts  of  history.  The  weakness 
of  Kant's  standpoint  was  later  pointed  out 
by  Strauss,  whose  opinion  is  well  summed  up 
in  the  following  paragraph. 

"Whilst  Kant  sought  to  educe  moral 
thoughts  from  the  biblical  writings,  even  in 
their  historical  part,  and  was  even  inclined  to 
consider  these  thoughts  as  the  fundamental 
object  of  the  history:  on  the  other  hand  he 
derived  these  thoughts  only  from  himself 
and  the  cultivation  of  his  age,  and  therefore 
could  seldom  assume  that  they  had  actually 
been  laid  down  by  the  authors  of  these  writ- 
ings; and  on  the  other  hand,  and  for  the  same 
reason,  he  omitted  to  show  what  was  the  rela- 
tion between  these  thoughts  and  those  sym- 
bolic representations,  and  how  it  happened  that 
the  one  came  to  be  expressed  by  the  other." 


BATTLE  OF  MIND  AND  SPIRIT     49 

The  next  development  of  biblical  criticism 
was  the  mythical  mode  of  interpretation  in 
which  are  prominent  the  names  of  Gabler, 
ScheUing,  Bauer,  Vater,  De  Wette,  and  others. 
These  critics  among  them  set  themselves  the 
difficult  task  of  classifying  the  Bible  narra- 
tives under  the  heads  of  three  kinds  of  myths : 
historical  myths,  philosophical  myths,  and 
poetical  myths.  The  first  were  "narratives 
of  real  events  colored  by  the  light  of  antiquity, 
which  confounded  the  divine  and  the  human, 
the  natural  and  the  supernatural";  the  sec- 
ond, "such  as  clothe  in  the  garb  of  historical 
narrative  a  simple  thought,  a  precept,  or  an 
idea  of  the  time";  the  third,  "historical  and 
philosophical  myths  partly  blended  together 
and  partly  embellished  by  the  creations  of 
the  imagination,  in  which  the  original  fact  or 
idea  is  almost  obscured  by  the  veil  which  the 
fancy  of  the  poet  has  woven  around  it." 

This  sort  of  interpretation,  first  applied  to 
the  Old  Testament,  was  later  used  in  sifting 
history  from  myth  to  the  New  Testament. 

It  will  be  seen  that  it  has  something  in 
common  with  both  the  previously  opposed 
views.  The  mythical  interpretation  agrees 
with  the  old  allegorical  view  in  so  far  that 
they  both  relinquish  historical  reality  in  favor 
of  some  inherent  truth  or  religious  conception 


50     BROWNING  AND  HIS  CENTURY 

of  which  the  historical  semblance  is  merely 
the  shell.  On  the  other  hand  it  agrees  with 
the  rationalistic  view  in  the  fact  that  it  really 
gives  a  natural  explanation  of  the  process  of 
the  growth  of  myths  and  legends  in  human 
society.  Immediate  divine  agency  controls  in 
the  allegorical  view,  the  spirit  of  individuals 
or  of  society  controls  in  the  mythical  view. 

Neither  the  out-and-out  rationalists  nor 
the  orthodox  students  of  the  Bible  approved 
of  this  new  mode  of  interpretation,  which 
was  more  or  less  the  outcome  of  the  study  of 
the  sacred  books  of  other  religions.  In  1835, 
however,  appeared  an  epoch-making  book 
which  subjected  the  New  Testament  to  the 
most  elaborate  criticism  based  upon  mythical 
and  legendary  interpretation.  This  was  the 
"Life  of  Jesus,  Critically  Examined,"  by  Dr. 
David  Friedrich  Strauss.  This  book  caused 
a  great  stir  in  the  theological  world  of  Ger- 
many. Strauss  was  dismissed  from  his  pro- 
fessorship in  the  University  of  Tubingen  in 
consequence  of  it.  Not  only  this,  but  in 
1839,  when  he  was  appointed  professor  of 
Church  History  and  Divinity  at  the  University 
of  Zurich,  he  was  compelled  at  once  to  resign, 
and  the  administration  which  appointed  him 
was  overthrown.  This  veritable  bomb  thrown 
into  the  world  of  theology  was  translated  by 


BATTLE  OF  MIND  AND  SPIRIT      51 

George  Eliot,  and  published  in  England  in 
1846. 

Through  this  translation  the  most  advanced 
German  thought  must  have  become  familiar 
to  many  outside  the  pale  of  the  professional 
scholar,  and  among  them  was,  doubtless, 
the  poet  Browning,  if  indeed  he  had  not 
already  become  familiar  with  it  in  the  original. 
When  the  content  and  the  thought  of 
Browning's  poems  upon  religious  subjects  are 
examined,  it  becomes  certain  that  he  was 
familiar  with  the  whole  trend  of  biblical 
criticism  in  the  first  half  of  the  century  and 
of  its  effect  upon  certain  of  the  orthodox 
churchmen,  and  that  with  full  consciousness 
he  brought  forward  in  his  religious  poems, 
not  didactically,  but  often  by  the  subtlest 
indirections,  his  own  attitude  toward  the 
problems  raised  in  this  department  of  scien- 
tific historical  inquiry. 

Some  of  the  problems  which  occupied  his 
attention,  such  as  that  in  "The  Death  in  the 
Desert, "  are  directly  traceable  to  the  influence 
of  Strauss's  book.  Whether  he  knew  of 
Strauss's  argument  or  not  when  he  wrote 
"Saul,"  his  treatment  of  the  story  of  David 
and  Saul  is  not  only  entirely  in  sympathy 
with  the  creed  of  the  German  school  of 
mythical  interpreters,  but  the  poet  himself 


52     BROWNING  AND  HIS  CENTURY 

becomes  one  of  the  myth  makers  in  the  series 
of  prophets  —  that  is,  he  takes  the  idea,  the 
Messianic  idea,  poetically  embellishes  an  old 
tradition,  making  it  glow  with  humanness, 
throws  into  that  idea  not  only  a  content 
beyond  that  which  David  could  have  dreamed 
of,  but  suggests  a  purely  psychical  origin  of 
the  Messianic  idea  itself  in  keeping  with  his 
own  thought  on  the  subject. 

The  history  of  the  origin  and  growth  of 
the  Messianic  ideal  as  traced  by  the  most 
modern  Jewish  critics  claims  it  to  have  been 
a  slow  evolution  hi  the  minds  of  the  prophets. 
In  Genesis  it  appears  as  the  prophecy  of  a 
time  to  come  of  universal  happiness  promised 
to  Abraham,  through  whose  seed  all  the 
peoples  of  the  earth  shall  be  blessed,  because 
they  had  hearkened  unto  the  voice  of  God. 
From  a  family  ideal  in  Abraham  it  passed  on 
to  being  a  tribal  ideal  with  Jacob,  and  with 
the  prophets  it  became  a  national  ideal,  an 
aspiration  toward  individual  happiness  and 
a  noble  national  life.  Not  until  the  time  of 
Isaiah  is  a  special  agent  mentioned  who  is  to 
be  the  instrument  by  means  of  which  the 
blessing  is  to  be  fulfilled,  and  there  we  read 
this  prophecy:  "There  shall  sprout  forth  a 
shoot  from  the  stem  of  Jesse,  upon  whom  will 
rest  the  spirit  of  Yahveh,  the  spirit  of  wisdom 


BATTLE  OF  MIND  AND  SPIRIT      53 

and  understanding,  of  counsel  and  strength, 
of  the  knowledge  and  fear  of  God.  He  will 
not  judge  according  to  appearance,  nor  will 
he  according  to  hearsay.  He  will  govern  in 
righteousness  the  poor,  and  judge  with  equity 
the  humble  of  the  earth.  He  will  smite  the 
mighty  with  the  rod  of  his  mouth,  and  the 
wicked  with  the  breath  of  his  lips." 

The  ideal  expressed  here  of  a  great  and  wise 
national  ruler  who  would  bring  about  the 
realization  of  liberty,  justice  and  peace  to 
the  Hebrew  nation,  and  not  only  to  them  but 
to  all  mankind,  becomes  in  the  prophetic 
vision  of  Daniel  a  mystic  being.  "I  saw  in 
the  visions  of  night,  and  behold,  with  the 
clouds  of  heaven  came  down  as  a  likeness  of 
the  son  of  man.  He  stepped  forward  to  the 
ancient  of  days.  To  him  was  given  dominion, 
magnificence  and  rule.  And  all  the  peoples, 
nations  and  tongues  did  homage  to  him. 
His  empire  is  an  eternal  empire  and  his  realm 
shall  never  cease." 

In  "Saul"  Browning  makes  David  the  type 
of  the  prophetic  faculty  hi  its  complete 
development.  His  vision  is  of  an  ideal  which 
was  not  fully  unfolded  until  the  advent  of 
Jesus  himself  —  the  ideal  not  merely  of  the 
mythical  political  liberator  but  of  the  spiritual 
saviour,  who  through  infinite  love  would  bring 


54     BROWNING  AND  HIS  CENTURY 

redemption  and  immortality  to  mankind. 
David  in  the  poem  essays  to  cheer  Saul  with 
the  thought  of  the  greatness  that  will  live 
after  him  in  the  memory  of  others,  but  his 
own  passionate  desire  to  give  something  better 
than  this  to  Saul  awakens  in  him  the  assur- 
ance that  God  must  be  as  full  of  love  and 
compassion  as  he  is.  Thus  Browning  explains 
the  sudden  awakening  of  David,  not  as  a 
divine  revelation  from  without,  but  as  a 
natural  growth  of  the  human  spirit  God  ward. 
This  new  perception  of  values  produces  the 
ecstasy  during  which  David  sees  his  visions, 
the  "witnesses,  cohorts"  about  him,  "angels, 
powers,  the  unuttered,  unseen,  the  alive,  the 
aware." 

This  whole  conception  was  developed  by 
Browning  from  the  single  phrase  in  I  Samuel : 
"And  David  came  to  Saul,  and  stood  before 
him:  and  he  loved  him  greatly."  In  thus 
making  David  prophesy  of  an  ideal  which 
had  not  been  evolved  at  his  tune,  Browning 
indulges  in  what  the  biblical  critic  would  call 
prophecy  after  the  fact,  and  so  throws  himself 
in  on  the  side  of  the  mythical  interpreters  of 
the  Bible. 

He  has  taken  a  historical  narrative,  embel- 
lished it  poetically  as  in  the  imaginary  ac- 
counts of  the  songs  sung  by  David  to  Saul, 


BATTLE  OF  MIND  AND  SPIRIT      55 

and  given  it  a  philosophical  content  belonging 
on  its  objective  side  to  the  dawn  of  Christian- 
ity in  the  coming  of  Jesus  himself  and  on  its 
subjective  side  to  his  (the  poet's)  own  time  — 
that  is,  the  idea  of  internal  instead  of  external 
revelation  —  one  of  the  ideas  about  which 
has  been  waged  the  so-called  conflict  of  Science 
and  Religion  as  it  was  understood  by  some  of 
the  most  prominent  thinkers  of  the  latter 
half  of  the  century.  In  this,  again,  it  will  be 
seen  that  Browning  was  in  the  van  of  the 
thought  of  the  century,  and  still  more  was  he 
in  the  van  in  the  psychological  tinge  which 
he  gives  to  David's  experience.  Professor 
William  James  himself  could  not  better  have 
portrayed  a  case  of  religious  ecstasy  growing 
out  of  genuine  exaltation  of  thought  than  the 
poet  has  in  David's  experience. 

This  poem  undoubtedly  sheds  many  rays 
of  light  upon  the  feelings,  at  the  time,  of  its 
writer.  While  he  was  a  profound  believer  in 
the  spiritual  nature  and  needs  of  man,  he  was 
evidently  not  opposed  to  the  contemporary 
methods  of  biblical  criticism  as  applied  to  the 
prophecies  of  the  Old  Testament,  for  has  he 
not  himself  worked  in  accord  with  the  light 
such  criticism  had  thrown  upon  the  origin 
of  prophecy?  Furthermore,  the  poem  is  not 
only  an  instance  of  his  belief  in  the  supremacy 


56     BROWNING  AND  HIS  CENTURY 

of  the  human  spirit,  but  it  distinctly  repu- 
diates the  Comtian  ideal  of  a  religion  of 
humanity,  and  of  an  immortality  existing 
only  in  the  memory  of  others.  The  Comte 
philosophy  growing  out  of  a  material  concep- 
tion of  the  universe  and  a  product  of  scien- 
tific thought  has  been  one  of  the  strong  influ- 
ences through  the  whole  of  the  nineteenth 
century  in  sociology  and  religion.  While  it 
has  worked  much  good  in  developing  a  deeper 
interest  in  the  social  life  of  man,  it  has  proved 
altogether  unsatisfactory  and  barren  as  a 
religious  ideal,  though  there  are  minds  which 
seem  to  derive  some  sort  of  forlorn  comfort 
from  this  religion  of  positivism  —  from  such 
hopes  as  may  be  inspired  by  the  worship  of 
Humanity  "as  a  continuity  and  solidarity 
in  time'*  without  "any  special  existence, 
more  largely  composed  of  the  dead  than  of 
the  living,"  by  the  thought  of  an  immortality 
in  which  we  shall  be  reunited  with  the  remem- 
brance of  our  "grandsires"  like  Tyltyl  and 
Mytyl  in  Maeterlinck's  "Blue  Bird." 

Here,  as  always,  the  poet  throws  in  his 
weight  on  the  side  of  the  paramount  worth 
of  the  individual,  and  of  a  conception  of  life 
which  demands  that  the  individual  shall  have 
a  future  world  in  which  to  overcome  the  flaws 
and  imperfections  incident  to  earthly  life. 


BATTLE  OF  MIND  AND  SPIRIT      57 

Although,  as  I  have  tried  to  show,  this  poem 
undoubtedly  bears  witness  to  Browning's 
awareness  to  the  thought  currents  of  the  day, 
it  is  couched  in  a  form  so  dramatic,  and  in 
a  language  so  poetic,  that  it  seems  like  a  spon- 
taneous outburst  of  belief  in  which  feeling 
alone  had  played  a  part.  Certainly,  what- 
ever thoughts  upon  the  subject  may  have 
been  stowed  away  in  the  subconscious  regions 
of  the  poet's  mind,  they  well  up  here  in  a 
fountain  of  pure  inspiration,  carrying  the 
thought  forward  on  the  wings  of  the  poet's 
own  spirit. 

Poems  reflecting  several  phases  of  the 
turmoil  of  religious  opinion  rife  in  mid-century 
England  are  "Christmas  Eve"  and  "Easter 
Day."  Baffling  they  are,  even  misleading  to 
any  one  who  is  desirous  of  finding  out  the 
exact  attitude  of  the  poet's  mind,  for  example, 
upon  the  rival  doctrines  of  a  Methodist  parson 
and  a  German  biblical  critic. 

The  Methodist  Chapel  and  the  German 
University  might  be  considered  as  representa- 
tive of  the  extremes  of  thought  in  the  more 
or  less  prescribed  realm  of  theology,  which 
largely  through  the  influence  of  the  filtering 
in  of  scientific  and  philosophic  thought  had 
divided  itself  into  many  sects. 

Within  the  Church  of  England  itself  there 


58     BROWNING  AND  HIS  CENTURY 

were  high  church  and  low  church,  broad 
church  and  Latitudinarian,  into  whose  differ- 
ent shades  of  opinion  it  is  not  needful  to  enter 
here.  Outside  of  the  Established  Church  were 
the  numerous  dissenters,  including  Congre- 
gationalists,  Baptists,  Quakers,  Methodists, 
Swedenborgians,  Unitarians,  and  numerous 
others. 

There  was  one  broad  line  of  division  be- 
tween the  Established  Church  and  the  dis- 
senting bodies.  In  the  first  was  inherent  the 
ancient  principle  of  authority,  while  the 
principle  of  self-government  in  matters  of 
faith  guided  all  the  dissenters  in  their  search 
for  the  light. 

It  is  not  surprising  that  with  so  many 
differing  shades  of  opinion  within  the  bosom 
of  the  Anglican  Church  it  should,  in  the  earlier 
half  of  the  century,  have  lost  its  grip  upon 
not  only  the  people  at  large,  but  upon  many 
of  its  higher  intellects.  The  principle  of 
authority  seemed  to  be  tottering  to  its  fall. 
In  this  crisis  the  Roman  Catholic  Church 
exercised  a  peculiar  fascination  upon  men  of 
intellectual  endowment  who,  fearing  the  direc- 
tion in  which  their  intellect  might  lead  them, 
turned  to  that  church  where  the  principle 
of  authority  kept  itself  firmly  rooted  by  sum- 
marily dismissing  any  one  who  might  question 


BATTLE  OF  MIND  AND  SPIRIT      59 

it.  It  is  of  interest  to  remember  that  at  the 
date  when  this  poem  was  written  the  Trac- 
tarian  Movement,  in  which  was  conspicuous 
the  Oxford  group  of  men,  had  succeeded  in 
carrying  over  four  hundred  clergymen  and 
laity  into  the  Catholic  Church. 

Those  who  were  unafraid  followed  the  lead 
of  German  criticism  and  French  materialism, 
but  the  large  mass  of  common  people  found 
in  Methodism  the  sort  of  religious  guidance 
which  it  craved. 

To  this  sect  has  been  attributed  an  unpar- 
alleled influence  in  the  moral  development  of 
England.  By  rescuing  multitudes  from  igno- 
rance and  from  almost  the  degradation  of 
beasts,  and  by  fostering  habits  of  industry 
and  thrift,  Methodism  became  a  chief  factor 
in  building  up  a  great,  intelligent  and  indus- 
trious middle-class.  Its  influence  has  been 
felt  even  in  the  Established  Church,  and 
as  its  enthusiastic  historians  have  pointed 
out,  England  might  have  suffered  the  political 
and  religious  convulsions  inaugurated  by  the 
French  Revolution  if  it  had  not  been  for 
the  saving  grace  of  Methodism. 

Appealing  at  first  to  the  poor  and  lowly, 
suffering  wrong  and  persecution  with  its 
founder,  Wesley,  it  was  so  flexible  in  its  con- 
stitution that  after  the  death  of  Wesley  it 


60     BROWNING  AND  HIS  CENTURY 

broadened  out  and  differentiated  in  a  way 
that  made  it  adaptable  to  very  varied  human 
needs.  In  consequence  of  this  it  finally 
became  a  genuine  power  in  the  Church  and 
State  of  Great  Britain. 

The  poem  "  Christmas  Eve  "  becomes  much 
more  understandable  when  these  facts  about 
Methodism  are  borne  in  mind  —  facts  which 
were  evidently  in  the  poet's  mind,  although 
the  poem  itself  has  the  character  of  a  symbolic 
rather  than  a  personal  utterance.  The  speaker 
might  be  regarded  as  a  type  of  the  religious 
conscience  of  England.  In  spite  of  whatever 
direct  visions  of  the  divine  such  a  type  of 
conscience  may  gain  through  the  contempla- 
tion of  nature  and  the  revelations  of  the 
human  heart,  its  relations  to  the  past  cause 
it  to  feel  the  need  of  some  sectarian  form  of 
religion  —  a  sort  of  inherited  need  to  be 
orthodox  in  one  form  or  another.  This 
religious  conscience  has  its  artistic  side;  it 
can  clothe  its  inborn  religious  instincts  in 
exquisite  imaginative  vision.  Also,  it  has  its 
clear-sighted  reasoning  side.  This  is  able 
unerringly  to  put  its  finger  upon  any  flaw  of 
doctrine  or  reasoning  in  the  forms  of  religion 
it  contemplates.  Hence,  Catholic  doctrine, 
which  was  claiming  the  allegiance  of  those  who 
were  willing  to  put  their  troublesome  intel- 


BATTLE  OF  MIND  AND  SPIRIT      61 

lects  to  sleep  and  accept  authority  where 
religion  was  concerned,  does  not  satisfy  this 
keen  analyzer.  Nor  yet  is  it  able  to  see  any 
religious  reality  in  such  a  myth  of  Christ  rehabi- 
litated as  an  ethical  prophet  as  the  Gottingen 
professor  constructs  in  a  manner  so  reminis- 
cent of  a  passage  in  Strauss's"Life  of  Jesus," 
where  he  is  describing  the  opinions  of  the 
rationalists'  school  of  criticism,  that  a  com- 
parison with  that  passage  is  enlightening. 

Having  swept  away  completely  the  super- 
natural basis  of  religion,  the  rationalist  is 
able  still  to  conceive  of  Jesus  as  a  divine 
Messenger,  a  special  favorite  and  charge  of 
the  Deity: 

"He  had  implanted  in  him  by  God  the  natural  conditions 
only  of  that  which  he  was  ultimately  to  become,  and  his 
realization  of  this  destiny  was  the  result  of  his  own  spontane- 
ity. His  admirable  wisdom  he  acquired  by  the  judicious 
application  of  his  intellectual  powers  and  the  conscientious 
use  of  all  the  aids  within  his  reach;  his  moral  greatness,  by  the 
zealous  culture  of  his  moral  dispositions,  the  restraint  of  his 
sensual  inclinations  and  passions,  and  a  scrupulous  obedience 
to  the  voice  of  his  conscience;  and  on  these  alone  rested  all 
that  was  exalted  in  his  personality,  all  that  was  encouraging 
in  his  example. " 

The  difficulty  to  this  order  of  mind  of  the 
direct  personal  revelation  lies  in  the  fact  that 
it  is  convincing  only  to  those  who  experience 


it,  having  no  basis  in  authority,  and  may 
even  for  them  lose  its  force. 

What  then  is  the  conclusion  forced  upon 
this  English  religious  conscience?  Simply 
this:  that,  though  failing  both  from  the 
intellectual  and  the  sesthetic  standpoint,  the 
dissenting  view  was  the  only  religious  view  of 
the  time  possessing  any  genuine  vitality.  It 
represented  the  progressive,  democratic  relig- 
ious force  which  was  then  in  England  bringing 
religion  into  the  lives  of  the  people  with  a 
positiveness  long  lost  to  the  Anglican  Church. 
The  religious  conscience  of  England  was 
growing  through  this  Methodist  movement. 
This  is  why  the  speaker  of  the  poem  chooses 
at  last  that  form  of  worship  which  he  finds 
in  the  little  chapel. 

While  no  one  can  doubt  that  the  exalted 
mysticism  based  upon  feeling,  and  the  large 
tolerance  of  the  poem,  reflect  most  nearly  the 
poet's  personal  attitude,  on  the  other  hand 
it  is  made  clear  that  in  his  opinion  the  dis- 
senting bodies  possessed  the  forms  of  religious 
orthodoxy  most  potent  at  the  time  for  good. 

In  "Easter  Day,"  the  doubts  and  fears 
which  have  racked  the  hearts  and  minds  of 
hundreds  and  thousands  of  individuals,  as 
the  result  of  the  increase  of  scientific  knowl- 
edge and  biblical  criticism  are  given  more 


BATTLE  OF  MIND  AND  SPIRIT      63 

personal  expression.  The  discussion  turns 
principally  upon  the  relation  of  the  finite  to 
the  Infinite,  a  philosophical  problem  capable 
of  much  hair-splitting  controversy,  solved 
here  in  keeping  with  the  prevailing  thought 
of  the  century  —  namely,  that  the  finite  is 
relative  and  that  this  relativity  is  the  proof 
of  the  Infinite. 

The  boldness  of  this  statement,  one  such 
as  might  be  found  in  the  pages  of  Spencer, 
is  by  Browning  elaborated  with  pictorial  and 
emotional  power.  Only  by  a  marvelous  vision 
is  the  truth  brought  home  to  the  speaker 
that  the  beauties  and  joys  of  earth  are  not 
all-sufficient,  but  that  they  are  in  the  poet's 
speech  but  partial  beauty,  though  through 
this  very  limitation  they  become  "a  pledge 
of  beauty  in  its  plenitude,"  gleams  "meant  to 
sting  with  hunger  for  full  light."  It  is  not, 
however,  until  this  see-er  of  visions  perceives 
the  highest  gleam  of  earth  that  he  is  able 
to  realize  through  the  spiritual  voice  of  his 
vision  that  the  nature  of  the  Infinite  is  in 
its  essence  Love,  the  supreme  manifestation 
of  which  was  symbolized  in  the  death  and 
resurrection  of  Christ. 

This  revelation  is  nevertheless  rendered 
null  by  the  man's  conviction  that  the  vision 
was  merely  such  "stuff  as  dreams  are  made 


64     BROWNING  AND  HIS  CENTURY 

on."  At  the  end  as  at  the  beginning  he  finds 
it  hard  to  be  a  Christian. 

His  vision,  which  thus  symbolizes  his  own 
course  of  emotionalized  reasoning,  brings 
hope  but  not  conviction.  Like  the  type  in 
"Christmas  Eve,"  conviction  can  come  to 
him  only  through  a  belief  in  supernatural 
revelation.  He  is  evidently  a  man  of  broad 
intellectual  endowment,  who  cannot,  as  the 
Tractarians  did,  lay  his  mind  asleep,  and 
rest  in  the  authority  of  a  church,  nor  yet  can 
he  be  satisfied  with  the  unconscious  anthropo- 
morphism of  the  sectarian.  He  doubts  his 
own  reasoning  attempts  to  formulate  religious 
doctrines,  he  doubts  even  the  revelations  of 
his  own  mystic  states  of  consciousness;  hence 
there  is  nothing  for  him  but  to  flounder  on 
through  life  as  best  he  can,  hoping,  fearing, 
doubting,  as  many  a  serious  mind  has  done 
owing  to  the  nineteenth-century  reaction 
against  the  supernatural  dogmas  of  Chris- 
tianity. Like  others  of  his  ilk,  he  probably 
stayed  in  the  Anglican  Church  and  weakened 
it  through  his  latitudinarianisms. 

A  study  in  religious  consciousness  akin  to 
this  is  that  of  Bishop  Blougram.  Here  we 
have  not  a  generalized  type  as  in  "Christmas 
Eve,"  nor  an  imaginary  individual  as  in 
"Easter  Day,"  but  an  actual  study  of  a  real 


BATTLE  OF  MIND  AND  SPIRIT      65 

man,  it  being  no  secret  that  Cardinal  Wise- 
man was  the  inspiration  for  the  poem. 

Wiseman's  influence  as  a  Catholic  in  the 
Tractarian  movement  was  a  powerful  one,  and 
in  the  poet's  dissection  of  his  psychology  an 
attempt  is  made  to  present  the  reasoning  by 
means  of  which  he  made  his  appeal  to  less 
independent  thinkers.  With  faith  as  the 
basis  of  religion,  doubt  serves  as  a  moral 
spur,  since  the  will  must  exercise  itself  in 
keeping  doubt  underfoot.  Browning,  himself, 
might  agree  that  aspiration  toward  faith  was 
one  of  the  tests  of  its  truth,  he  might  also 
consider  doubt  as  a  spur  to  greater  aspiration, 
but  these  ideals  would  connote  something 
different  to  him  from  what  he  makes  them 
mean  to  Blougram.  The  poet's  aspiration 
would  be  toward  a  belief  in  Omniscient  Love 
and  Power,  his  doubts  would  grow  out  of  his 
inability  to  make  this  ideal  tally  with  the 
sin  and  evil  he  beholds  in  life.  Blougram's 
consciousness  is  on  a  lower  plane.  His  aspira- 
tion is  to  believe  in  the  dogmas  of  the  Church, 
his  doubts  arise  from  an  intellectual  fear 
that  the  dogmas  may  not  be  true.  Where 
Browning  seems  to  miss  comprehension  of 
such  a  nature  as  Blougram's  is  in  failing  to 
recognize  that  on  his  own  plane  of  conscious- 
ness genuine  feeling  and  the  perception  of 


66     BROWNING  AND  HIS  CENTURY 

beauty  play  at  least  as  large  a  part  in  the 
basis  of  his  faith  as  utilitarian  and  instinctive 
reasoning  do.  While  this  poem  shows  in  its 
references  to  the  scientific  theories  of  the  origin 
of  morals  and  its  allusions  to  Strauss,  as  well 
as  in  the  indirect  portrayal  of  Gigadibs,  the 
man  emancipated  from  the  Church,  how 
entirely  familiar  the  poet  was  with  the  cur- 
rents of  religious  and  scientific  thought,  it 
falls  short  as  a  fair  analysis  of  a  man  who 
is  acknowledged  to  have  wielded  a  tremendous 
religious  influence  upon  Englishmen  of  the 
caliber  of  Cardinal  Newman,  Kingsley,  Arnold, 
and  others. 

If  we  leave  out  of  account  its  connection 
with  a  special  individual,  the  poem  stands, 
however,  as  a  delightful  study  of  a  type  in 
which  is  depicted  in  passingly  clever  fashion 
methods  of  reasoning  compounded  of  tanta- 
lizing gleams  of  truth  and  darkening  sophis- 
tication. 

The  poem  which  shows  most  completely 
the  effect  of  contemporary  biblical  criticism 
on  the  poet  is  "A  Death  in  the  Desert."  It 
has  been  said  to  be  an  attempt  to  meet  the 
destructive  criticism  of  Strauss.  The  setting 
of  the  poem  is  wonderfully  beautiful,  while 
the  portrayal  of  the  mystical  quality  of 
John's  reasoning  is  so  instinct  with  religious 


BATTLE  OF  MIND  AND  SPIRIT      67 

feeling  that  it  must  be  a  wary  reader  indeed 
who  does  not  come  from  the  reading  of  this 
poem  with  the  conviction  that  here,  at  least, 
Browning  has  declared  himself  unflinchingly 
on  the  side  of  supernatural  Christianity  in 
the  face  of  the  battering  rams  of  criticism 
and  the  projectiles  of  science. 

But  if  he  be  a  wary  reader,  he  will  discover 
that  the  argument  for  supernaturalism  only 
amounts  to  this  —  and  it  is  put  in  the  mouth 
of  John,  who  had  in  his  youth  been  contem- 
porary with  Christ  —  namely,  that  miracles 
had  been  performed  when  only  by  means  of 
them  faith  was  possible,  though  miracles  were 
probably  not  what  those  who  believed  in  them 
thought  they  were.  Here  is  the  gist  of  his 
defence  of  the  supernatural: 

"I  say,  that  as  a  babe,  you  feed  awhile, 
Becomes  a  boy  and  fit  to  feed  himself, 
So,  minds  at  first  must  be  spoon-fed  with  truth: 
When  they  can  eat,  babes'-nurture  is  withdrawn. 
I  fed  the  babe  whether  it  would  or  no: 
I  bid  the  boy  or  feed  himself  or  starve. 
I  cried  once,  '  That  ye  may  believe  hi  Christ, 
Behold  this  blind  man  shall  receive  his  sight!' 
I  cry  now,  '  Urgest  thou,  for  I  am  shrewd 
And  smile  at  stories  how  John's  word  could  cure  — 
Repeat  that  miracle  and  take  my  faith?' 
I  say,  that  miracle  was  duly  wrought 
When  save  for  it  no  faith  was  possible. 


68     BROWNING  AND  HIS  CENTURY 

Whether  a  change  were  wrought  in  the  shows  o'  the  world, 
Whether  the  change  came  from  our  minds  which  see 
Of  shows  o'  the  world  so  much  as  and  no  more 
Than  God  wills  for  his  purpose,  —  (what  do  I 
See  now,  suppose  you,  there  where  you  see  rock 
Round  us?)  —  I  know  not;  such  was  the  effect, 
So  faith  grew,  making  void  more  miracles, 
Because  too  much  they  would  compel,  not  help. 
I  say,  the  acknowledgment  of  God  in  Christ 
Accepted  by  thy  reason,  solves  for  thee 
All  questions  in  the  earth  and  out  of  it, 
And  has  so  far  advanced  thee  to  be  wise. 
Wouldst  thou  improve  this  to  re-prove  the  proved? 
In  life's  mere  minute,  with  power  to  use  the  proof, 
Leave  knowledge  and  revert  to  how  it  sprung? 
Thou  hast  it;  use  it  and  forthwith,  or  die!" 

The  important  truth  as  seen  by  John's 
dying  eyes  is  that  faith  in  a  beautiful  ideal 
has  been  born  in  the  human  soul.  Whether 
the  accounts  of  the  exact  means  by  which 
this  faith  arose  were  literally  true  is  of 
little  importance,  the  faith  itself  is  no  less 
God-given,  as  another  passage  will  make 
clear: 

"Man,  therefore,  thus  conditioned,  must  expect 
He  could  not,  what  he  knows  now,  know  at  first; 
What  he  considers  that  he  knows  to-day, 
Come  but  to-morrow,  he  will  find  misknown; 
Getting  increase  of  knowledge,  since  he  learns 
Because  he  lives,  which  is  to  be  a  man, 
Set  to  instruct  himself  by  his  past  self; 


BATTLE  OF  MIND  AND  SPIRIT     69 

First,  like  the  brute,  obliged  by  facts  to  learn, 
Next,  as  man  may,  obliged  by  his  own  mind, 
Bent,  habit,  nature,  knowledge  turned  to  law. 
God's  gift  was  that  man  should  conceive  of  truth 
And  yearn  to  gain  it,  catching  at  mistake 
As  midway  help  till  he  reach  fact  indeed. " 

The  defence  of  Christianity  in  this  poem 
reminds  one  very  strongly  of  the  theology  of 
Schleiermacher,  a  resume  of  which  the  poet 
might  have  found  in  Strauss's  "Life  of  Jesus." 
Although  Schleiermacher  accepted  and  even 
went  beyond  the  negative  criticism  of  the 
rationalists  against  the  doctrines  of  the 
Church,  he  sought  to  retain  the  essential 
aspects  of  positive  Christianity.  He  starts 
out  from  the  consciousness  of  the  Christian, 
"from  that  internal  experience  resulting  to 
the  individual  from  his  connection  with  the 
Christian  community,  and  he  thus  obtains  a 
material  which,  as  its  basis  of  feeling,  is  more 
flexible  and  to  which  it  is  easier  to  give  dialec- 
tically  a  form  that  satisfies  science." 

Again,  "If  we  owe  to  him  [Jesus]  the  con- 
tinual strengthening  of  the  consciousness  of 
God  within  us,  this  consciousness  must  have 
existed  in  him  in  absolute  strength,  so  that 
it  or  God  in  the  form  of  the  consciousness 
was  the  only  operative  force  within  him. " 
In  other  words,  in  Jesus  was  the  supreme 


manifestation  of  God  in  human  consciousness. 
This  truth,  first  grasped  by  means  which 
seemed  miraculous,  is  finally  recognized  in 
man's  developing  consciousness  as  a  con- 
summation brought  about  by  natural  means. 
John's  reasoning  in  the  poem  can  lead  to  no 
other  conclusion  than  this. 

Schleiermacher's  theology  has,  of  course, 
been  objected  to  on  the  ground  that  if  this 
incarnation  of  God  was  possible  in  one  man, 
there  is  no  reason  why  it  should  not  frequently 
be  possible.  This  is  the  orthodox  objection, 
and  it  is  voiced  in  the  comment  added  by 
"One"  at  the  end  of  the  poem  showing  the 
weakness  of  John's  argument  from  the  strictly 
orthodox  point  of  view. 

With  regard  to  the  miracles  being  natural 
events  supernaturally  interpreted  —  that  is  an 
explanation  familiar  to  the  biblical  critic,  and 
one  which  the  psychologist  of  to-day  is  ready 
to  support  with  numberless  proofs  and  analy- 
ses. How  much  this  poem  owes  to  hints 
derived  from  Strauss's  book  is  further  illus- 
trated by  the  "Glossa  of  Theotypas,"  which 
is  borrowed  from  Origen,  whose  theory  is 
referred  to  by  Strauss  in  his  Introduction  as 
follows:  "Origen  attributes  a  threefold  mean- 
ing to  the  Scriptures,  corresponding  with  his 
distribution  of  the  human  being  into  three 


BATTLE  OF  MIND  AND  SPIRIT      71 

parts,  the  liberal  sense  answering  to  the  body, 
the  moral  to  the  soul,  and  the  mystical  to  the 
spirit." 

On  the  whole,  the  poem  appears  to  be 
influenced  more  by  the  actual  contents  of 
Strauss's  book  than  to  be  deliberately  directed 
against  his  thought,  for  John's  own  reasoning 
when  his  feelings  are  in  abeyance  might  be 
deduced  from  more  than  one  passage  in  this 
work  wherein  are  passed  in  review  the  con- 
clusions of  divers  critics  of  the  naturalist  and 
rationalist  schools  of  thought. 

The  poem  "An  Epistle"  purports  to  give 
a  nearly  contemporary  opinion  by  an  Arab 
physician  upon  the  miracle  of  the  raising  of 
Lazarus.  We  have  here,  on  the  one  hand,  the 
Arab's  natural  explanation  of  the  miracle  as 
an  epileptic  trance  prolonged  some  three  days, 
and  Lazarus's  interpretation  of  his  cure  as 
a  supernatural  event.  Though  absolutely 
skeptical,  the  Arab  cannot  but  be  impressed 
with  the  beliefs  of  Lazarus,  because  of  their 
revelation  of  God  as  a  God  of  Love.  Thus 
Browning  brings  out  the  power  of  the  truth 
in  the  underlying  ideas  of  Christianity,  what- 
ever skepticism  may  be  felt  as  to  the  letter 
of  it. 

The  effect  of  the  trance  upon  the  nature 
of  Lazarus  is  paralleled  to-day  by  accounts. 


72     BROWNING  AND  HIS  CENTURY 

given  by  various  persons,  of  their  sensations 
when  they  have  sunk  into  unconsciousness 
nigh  unto  death.  I  remember  reading  of  a 
case  in  which  a  man  described  his  feeling  of 
entire  indifference  as  to  the  relations  of  life, 
his  joy  hi  a  sense  of  freedom  and  ineffable 
beauty  toward  which  he  seemed  to  be  flying 
through  space,  and  his  disinclination  to  be 
resuscitated,  a  process  which  his  spirit  was 
watching  from  its  heights  with  fear  lest  his 
friends  should  bring  him  back  to  earth.  This 
higher  sort  of  consciousness  seems  to  have 
evolved  in  some  people  to-day  without  the 
intervention  of  such  an  experience  as  that 
of  Lazarus  or  one  such  as  that  of  the 
above  subject  of  the  Society  for  Psychical 
Research. 

In  describing  Lazarus  to  have  reached  such 
an  outlook  upon  life,  Browning  again  ranges 
himself  with  the  most  advanced  psychological 
thought  of  the  century.  Hear  William  James : 
"The  existence  of  mystical  states  absolutely 
overthrows  the  pretension  of  non-mystical 
states  to  be  the  sole  and  ultimate  dictators 
of  what  we  may  believe.  As  a  rule,  mystical 
states  merely  add  a  supersensuous  meaning 
to  the  ordinary  outward  data  o'f  consciousness. 
They  are  excitements  like  the  emotions  of 
love  or  ambition,  gifts  to  our  spirit  by  means 


BATTLE  OF  MIND  AND  SPIRIT      73 

of  which  facts  already  objectively  before  us 
fall  into  a  new  expressiveness  and  make  a 
new  connection  with  our  active  life.  They 
do  not  contradict  these  facts  as  such,  or  deny 
anything  that  our  senses  have  immediately 
seized.  It  is  the  rationalistic  critic  rather 
who  plays  the  part  of  denier  in  the  contro- 
versy, and  his  denials  have  no  strength,  for 
there  never  can  be  a  state  of  facts  to  which 
new  meaning  may  not  truthfully  be  added, 
provided  the  mind  ascend  to  a  more  envelop- 
ing point  of  view.  It  must  always  remain 
an  open  question  whether  mystical  states  may 
not  possibly  be  such  superior  points  of  view, 
windows  through  which  the  mind  looks  out 
upon  a  more  extensive  and  inclusive  world. 
The  difference  of  the  views  seen  from  the 
different  mystical  windows  need  not  prevent 
us  from  entertaining  this  supposition.  The 
wider  world  would  in  that  case  prove  to  have 
a  mixed  constitution  like  that  of  this  world, 
that  is  all.  It  would  have  its  celestial  and  its 
infernal  regions,  its  tempting  and  its  saving 
moments,  its  valid  experiences  and  its  coun- 
terfeit ones,  just  as  our  world  has  them;  but 
it  would  be  a  wider  world  all  the  same.  We 
should  have  to  use  its  experiences  by  selecting 
and  subordinating  and  substituting  just  as 
is  our  custom  in  this  ordinary  naturalistic 


74     BROWNING  AND  HIS  CENTURY 

world;  we  should  be  liable  to  error  just  as  we 
are  now;  yet  the  counting  in  of  that  wider 
world  of  meanings,  and  the  serious  dealing 
with  it,  might,  in  spite  of  all  the  perplexity, 
be  indispensable  stages  in  our  approach  to 
the  final  fulness  of  the  truth." 

The  vision  of  Lazarus  belongs  to  the 
beatific  realm,  and  the  naturalistic  Arab  has 
a  longing  for  similar  strange  vision,  though  he 
calls  it  a  madman's,  for  — 

"So,  the  All-Great,  were  the  All-Loving  too  — 
So,  through  the  thunder  comes  a  human  voice 
Saying,  '0  heart  I  made,  a  heart  beats  here! 
Face,  my  hands  fashioned,  see  it  in  myself! 
Thou  hast  no  power  nor  mayst  conceive  of  mine, 
But  love  I  gave  thee,  with  myself  to  love, 
And  thou  must  love  me  who  have  died  for  thee. ' " 

A  survey  of  Browning's  contributions  to 
the  theological  differences  of  the  mid-century 
would  not  be  complete  without  some  reference 
to  "Caliban"  and  "Childe  Roland."  In  the 
former,  the  absurdities  of  anthropomorphism, 
of  the  God  conceived  in  the  likeness  of  man, 
are  presented  with  dramatic  and  ironical  force, 
but,  at  the  same  time,  is  shown  the  aspiration 
to  something  beyond,  which  has  carried 
dogma  through  all  the  centuries,  forward  to 
ever  purer  and  more  spiritual  conceptions  of 
the  absolute.  In  the  second,  though  it  be  a 


BATTLE  OF  MIND  AND  SPIRIT     75 

purely  romantic  ballad,  there  seems  to  be 
symbolized  the  scientific  knight-errant  of  the 
century,  who,  with  belief  and  faith  completely 
annihilated  by  the  science  which  allows  for 
no  realm  of  knowledge  beyond  its  own  experi- 
mental reach,  yet  considers  life  worth  living. 
Despite  the  complex  interpretations  which 
have  issued  from  the  oracular  tripods  of 
Browning  Societies,  one  cannot  read  the  last 
lines  of  this  poem  — 

"Dauntless  the  slug-horn  to  my  lips  I  set, 
And  blew,  'Childe  Roland  to  the  dark  Tower  came'"  — 

without  thinking  of  the  splendid  courage  in 
the  face  of  disillusionment  of  such  men  of 
the  century  as  Huxley,  Tyndall  or  Clifford. 
When  we  ask,  where  is  Browning  in  all  this 
diversity  of  theological  opinion?  we  can  only 
answer  that  beyond  an  ever-present  under- 
current of  religious  aspiration  there  is  no 
possibility  of  pinning  the  poet  to  any  given 
dogmas.  Everywhere  we  feel  the  dramatic 
artist.  In  "Paracelsus"  the  philosophy  of 
life  was  that  of  the  artist  whose  adoration 
finds  its  completion  in  beauty  and  joy;  now 
the  poet  himself  is  the  artist  experiencing  as 
Aprile  did,  this  beauty  and  joy  in  a  boundless 
sympathy  with  many  forms  of  mystical  relig- 
ious ecstasy.  Every  one  of  these  poems  pre- 


76     BROWNING  AND  HIS  CENTURY 

sents  a  conflict  between  the  doubts  born  of 
some  phase  of  theological  controversy  and  the 
exaltation  of  moments  or  periods  of  ecstatic 
vision,  and  though  nowhere  is  dogmatic  truth 
asserted  with  positiveness,  everywhere  we  feel 
a  mystic  sympathy  with  the  moving  power 
of  religious  aspiration,  a  sympathy  which 
belongs  to  a  form  of  consciousness  perhaps 
more  inclusive  than  the  religious  —  namely, 
a  poetic  consciousness,  able  at  once  to  sympa- 
thize with  the  content  and  to  present  the 
forms  of  mystic  vision  belonging  to  various 
phases  of  human  consciousness. 


n 

THE  CENTURY'S  END:  PROMISE  OF  PEACE 

PASSING  onward  from  this  mid-century 
phase  of  Browning's  interest  in  what  I 
have  called  the  battle  of  the  mind  and  the 
spirit,  we  find  him  in  his  later  poems  taking  up 
the  subject  in  its  broader  aspects,  more  as  he 
treated  it  in  "Paracelsus,"  yet  with  a  marked 
difference  in  temper.  God  is  no  longer  con- 
ceived of  merely  as  a  divine  creator,  joying 
in  the  wonder  and  beauty  of  his  creations. 
The  ideal  of  the  artist  has  been  modified  by 
the  observation  of  the  thinker  and  the  feeling 
induced  by  human  rather  than  by  artistic 
emotion.  Life's  experiences  have  shown  to 
the  more  humanly  conscious  Browning  that 
the  problem  of  evil  is  not  one  to  be  so  easily 
dismissed.  The  scientist  may  point  out  that 
evil  is  but  lack  of  development,  and  the  lover 
and  artist  may  exult  when  he  sees  the  won- 
derful processes  of  nature  and  mind  carrying 
forward  development  until  he  can  picture  a 
time  when  the  evil  shall  become  null  and 
void,  but  the  human,  feeling  being  sees  the 

77 


misery  and  the  unloveliness  of  evil.  It  does 
not  satisfy  him  to  know  that  it  is  lack  of 
development  or  the  outcome  of  lack  of  de- 
velopment, nor  yet  that  it  will  grow  less  as 
time  goes  on  he  ponders  the  problem,  "why 
is  evil  permitted,  how  is  it  to  be  harmonized 
with  the  existence  of  a  universe  planned  upon 
a  scheme  which  he  believes  to  be  the  outcome 
of  a  source  all-powerful  and  all-loving!" 

About  this  problem  and  its  corollary,  the 
conception  of  the  infinite,  Browning's  latter- 
day  thought  revolves  as  it  did  in  his  middle 
years  about  the  basis  of  religious  belief. 

It  is  one  of  the  strange  freaks  of  criticism 
that  many  admirers  of  Browning's  earlier 
work  have  failed  to  see  the  importance  of  his 
later  poems,  especially  "Ferishtah's  Fancies," 
and  "The  Parleyings, "  not  only  as  expressions 
of  the  poet's  own  spiritual  growth,  but  as 
showing  his  mental  grasp  of  the  problems 
which  the  advance  of  nineteenth-century 
scientific  thought  brought  to  the  fore  in  the 
last  days  of  the  century. 

The  date  at  which  various  critics  have 
declared  that  Browning  ceased  to  write  poetry 
might  be  considered  an  index  of  the  time 
when  that  critic's  powers  became  atrophied. 
No  less  a  person  than  Edmund  Gosse  is  of  the 
opinion  that  since  1868  the  poet's  books  were 


PROMISE  OF  PEACE  79 

chiefly  valuable  as  keeping  alive  popular 
interest  in  him,  and  as  leading  fresh  gener- 
ations of  readers  to  what  he  had  already  pub- 
lished. Fortunately  it  has  long  been  admitted 
that  Homer  sometimes  nods,  though  not 
with  such  awful  effect  as  was  said  to  at- 
tend the  nods  of  Jove.  Hence,  in  spite  of 
Mr.  Gosse's  undoubted  eminence  as  a  critic, 
we  may  dare  to  assume  that  in  this  particular 
instance  he  fell  into  the  ancient  and  dis- 
tinguished trick  of  nodding. 

If  Mr.  Gosse  were  right,  it  would  practi- 
cally put  on  a  par  with  a  mere  advertising 
scheme  many  poems  which  have  now  be- 
come household  favorites.  Take,  for  exam- 
ple, "Herve  Kiel."  Think  of  the  blue-eyed 
Breton  hero  whom  all  the  world  has  learned  to 
love  through  Browning,  tolerated  simply  as 
an  index  finger  to  "The  Pied  Piper  of  Hame- 
lin."  Take,  too,  such  poems,  as  "Donald." 
This  man's  dastardly  sportsmanship  is  so  viv- 
idly portrayed  that  it  has  the  power  to  arouse 
strong  emotion  in  strong  men,  who  have  been 
known  literally  to  break  down  in  the  middle 
of  it  through  excess  of  feeling;  "Ivan  Ivano- 
vitch,"  in  which  is  embodied  such  fear  and 
horror  that  weak  hearts  cannot  stand  the 
strain  of  hearing  it  read;  the  story  of  the 
dog  Tray,  who  rescued  a  drowning  doll  with 


80     BROWNING  AND  HIS  CENTURY 

the  same  promptitude  as  he  did  a  drowning 
child  —  at  the  relation  of  whose  noble  deeds 
the  eyes  of  little  children  grow  eager  with 
excitement  and  sympathy.  And  where  is 
there  in  any  poet's  work  a  more  vivid  bit 
of  tragedy  than  "A  Forgiveness?" 

And  would  not  an  unfillable  gap  be  left  in 
the  ranks  of  our  friends  of  the  imaginative 
world  if  Balaustion  were  blotted  out? — the 
exquisite  lyric  girl,  brave,  tender  and  with  a 
mind  in  which  wisdom  and  wit  are  fair  play 
fellows. 

As  Carlyle  might  say,  "Verily,  verily,  Mr. 
Gosse,  thou  hast  out-Homered  Homer,  and 
thy  nod  hath  taken  upon  itself  very  much  the 
semblance  of  a  snore. " 

These  and  many  others  which  might  be 
mentioned  since  the  date  when  Mr.  Gosse 
autocratically  put  up  the  bars  to  the  poet's 
genius  are  now  universally  accepted.  There 
are  others,  however,  such  as  "The  Red  Cotton 
Night-cap  Country,"  "The  Inn  Album," 
"Aristophanes'  Apology,"  "Fifine  at  the 
Fair, "  which  are  liable  at  any  time  to  attacks 
from  atrophied  critics,  and  among  these  are 
the  groups  of  poems  which  are  to  form  the 
center  of  our  present  discussion. 

Without  particularizing  either  critics  or 
criticism  it  may  be  said  that  criticism  of  these 


PROMISE  OF  PEACE  81 

poems  divides  itself  into  the  usual  three 
branches  —  one  which  objects  to  their  philos- 
ophy, one  which  objects  to  their  art,  one 
which  finds  them  difficult  of  comprehension 
at  all.  This  last  criticism  may  easily  be  dis- 
posed of  by  admitting  it  is  in  part  true. 
The  mind  whose  highest  reaches  of  poetic 
inspiration  are  ministered  unto  by  such  simple 
and  easily  understandable  lyrics  as  "Twinkle, 
twinkle,  little  star, "  might  not  at  once  grasp 
the  significance  of  the  Parleying  with  George 
Bubb  Dodington.  Indeed,  it  may  be  sur- 
mised that  some  minds  might  sing  upon  the 
starry  heights  with  Hegel  and  fathom  the 
equivalence  of  being  and  non-being,  and  yet 
be  led  into  a  slough  of  despond  by  this  same 
cantankerous  George. 

But  a  poetical  slough  of  despond  may  be 
transfigured  in  the  twinkling  of  an  eye  — 
after  a  proper  amount  of  study  and  hard 
thinking  —  into  an  elevated  plateau  with 
prospects  upon  every  side,  grand  or  terrible  or 
smiling. 

Are  we  never  to  feel  spurred  to  any  poetical 
pleasure  more  vigorous  than  dilly-dallying 
with  Keats  while  we  feast  our  eyes  upon  the 
wideness  of  the  seas?  or  lazily  floating  in  a 
lotos  land  with  Tennyson,  perhaps,  among 
the  meadows  of  the  Musketaquid,  in  canoes 


82     BROWNING  AND  HIS  CENTURY 

with  silken  cushions?  Beauty  and  peace  are 
the  reward  of  such  poetical  pleasures.  They 
fall  upon  the  spirit  like  the  "sweet  sound  that 
breathes  upon  a  bank  of  violets,  stealing  and 
giving  odor,"  but  shall  we  never  return  from 
the  land  where  it  is  always  afternoon?  Is  it 
only  in  such  a  land  as  this  that  we  realize  the 
true  power  of  emotion?  Rather  does  it  con- 
duce to  the  slumber  of  emotion,  for  progress  is 
the  law  of  feeling  as  it  is  the  law  of  life,  and 
many  times  we  feel  —  yes,  feel  —  with  tre- 
mendous rushes  of  enthusiasm  like  climbing 
Matterhorns  with  great  iron  nails  in  our 
shoes,  with  historical  and  archaeological 
and  philosophical  Alpen-stocks  in  our  hands, 
and  when  we  reach  the  summit  what  unsus- 
pected beauties  become  ours ! 

Then  let  us  hear  no  more  of  the  critic  who 
wishes  Browning  had  ceased  to  write  in  1868 
or  at  any  other  date.  It  may  be  said  of  him, 
not  as  of  Whitman,  "he  who  reads  my  book 
touches  a  man,"  but  "he  who  reads  my 
poems  from  start  to  finish  grasps  the  life  and 
thought  of  a  century. " 

There  will  be  no  exaggeration  in  claiming 
that  these  two  series  of  poems  form  the  key- 
stone to  Browning's  whole  work.  They  are 
like  a  final  synthesis  of  the  problems  of  ex- 
istence which  he  has  previously  portrayed 


PROMISE  OF  PEACE  83 

and  analyzed  from  myriad  points  of  view  in 
his  dramatic  presentation  of  character  and  his 
dramatic  interpretations  of  spiritual  moods. 

In  "Pauline,"  before  the  poet's  personality 
became  more  or  less  merged  in  that  of  his 
characters,  we  obtain  a  direct  glimpse  of  the 
poet's  own  artistic  temperament,  and  may 
literally  acquaint  ourselves  with  those  quali- 
ties which  were  to  be  a  large  influence  in 
moulding  his  work. 

As  described  by  himself,  the  poet  of  "Paul- 
ine" was 

"Made  up  of  an  intensest  life, 
Of  a  most  clear  idea  of  consciousness 
Of  self,  distinct  from  all  its  qualities, 
From  all  affections,  passions,  feelings,  powers; 
And  thus  far  it  exists,  if  tracked,  in  all: 
But  linked  in  me  to  self-supremacy, 
Existing  as  a  center  to  all  things, 
Most  potent  to  create  and  rule  and  call 
Upon  all  things  to  minister  to  it. " 

This  sense  of  an  over-consciousness  is  the 
mark  of  an  objective  poet  —  one  who  sym- 
pathizes with  all  the  emotions  and  aspira- 
tions of  humanity  —  interprets  their  actions 
through  the  light  of  this  sympathy,  and  at 
the  same  time  keeps  his  own  individuality 
distinct. 

The  poet  of  this  poem  discovers  that  he 


84     BROWNING  AND  HIS  CENTURY 

can  no  longer  lose  himself  with  enthusiasm  in 
any  phase  of  life;  but  what  does  that  mean  to 
a  soul  constituted  as  his?  It  means  that  the 
way  has  been  cleared  for  the  birth  of  that 
greater,  broader  love  of  the  fully  developed 
artist  soul  which,  while  entering  into  sym- 
pathy with  all  phases  of  life,  finds  its  true 
complement  only  in  an  ideal  of  absolute 
Love. 

This  picture  of  the  artist  aspiring  toward 
the  absolute  by  means  of  his  large  human 
sympathy  may  be  supplemented  by  the  theory 
of  man's  relation  to  the  universe  involved  in 
"Paracelsus"  as  we  have  seen. 

From  this  point  in  his  work,  Browning, 
like  the  Hindu  Brahma,  becomes  manifest 
not  as  himself,  but  in  his  creations.  The  poet 
whose  portrait  is  painted  for  us  in  "Pauline" 
is  the  same  poet  who  sympathetically  presents 
a  whole  world  of  human  experiences  to  us, 
and  the  philosopher  whose  portrait  is  drawn 
in  "Paracelsus"  is  the  same  who  interprets 
these  human  experiences  in  the  light  of  the 
great  life  theories  therein  presented. 

But  as  the  creations  of  Brahma  return  into 
himself,  so  the  human  experiences  Browning 
has  entered  into  artistic  sympathy  with  return 
to  enrich  his  completed  view  of  the  problems 
of  life,  when,  like  his  own  Rabbi  Ben  Ezra,  he 


PROMISE  OF  PEACE  85 

reaches  the  last  of  life  for  which  the  first  was 
planned  in  these  "Fancies"  and  " Parleyings. " 

Though  these  two  groups  of  poems  un- 
doubtedly express  the  poet's  own  mature 
conclusions,  they  yet  preserve  the  dramatic 
form.  Several  things  are  gained  in  this  way: 
First,  the  poems  are  saved  from  didacticism, 
for  the  poet  expresses  his  opinions  as  an  in- 
dividual, and  not  in  his  own  person  as  a 
seer,  trying  to  implant  his  theories  in  the 
minds  of  disciples.  Second,  variety  is  given 
and  the  mind  stimulated  by  having  opposite 
points  of  view  presented,  while  the  thought 
is  infused  with  a  certain  amount  of  emotional 
force  through  the  heat  of  argument. 

It  has  frequently  been  objected,  not  only 
of  these  poems,  but  upon  general  grounds, 
that  philosophical  and  ethical  problems  are 
not  fit  subjects  for  treatment  in  poetry. 
There  is  one  point  which  the  critic  of  aesthet- 
ics seems  in  danger  of  never  realizing — namely, 
that  the  law  of  evolution  is  differentiation, 
in  art  as  well  as  in  cosmic,  organic,  and  social 
life.  It  is  just  as  prejudiced  and  unforeseeing 
in  these  days  to  limit  poetry  to  this  or  that 
kind  of  a  subject,  or  to  say  that  nothing  is 
dramatic  which  does  not  deal  with  immediate 
action,  as  it  would  have  been  for  Homer  to 
declare  that  no  poem  would  ever  be  worthy 


86     BROWNING  AND  HIS  CENTURY 

the  name  that  did  not  contain  a  catalogue  of 
ships. 

These  facts  exist!  We  have  dramas  deal- 
ing merely  with  action,  dramas  in  which  char- 
acter development  is  of  prime  importance; 
dramas  wherein  action  and  character  are 
entirely  synchronous;  and  those  in  which 
the  action  means  more  than  appears  upon 
the  surface,  like  Hauptmann's  "  Sunken  Bell, " 
or  Ibsen's  "Master  Builder";  then  why  not 
dramas  of  thought  and  dramas  of  mood  when 
the  brain  and  heart  become  the  stage  of  action 
instead  of  an  actual  stage. 

Surely  such  an  extension  of  the  possibilities 
of  dramatic  art  is  a  development  quite 
natural  to  the  intellectual  ferment  of  the 
nineteenth  century.  As  the  man  in  "Half 
Rome"  says,  "Facts  are  facts  and  lie  not,  and 
the  question,  'How  came  that  purse  the 
poke  o'  you?'  admits  of  no  reply." 

By  using  the  dramatic  form,  the  poet  has 
furthermore  been  enabled  to  give  one  a  deep 
sense  of  the  characteristics  peculiar  to  the 
century.  The  latter  half  of  Victorian  Eng- 
land hi  its  thought  phases  lives  just  as  surely 
in  these  poems  as  Renaissance  Italy  in  its  art 
phases  hi  "Era  Lippo  Lippi,"  "Andrea  del 
Sarto,"  and  the  rest;  and  this  is  true  though 
the  first  series  is  cast  in  the  form  of  Persian 


PROMISE  OF  PEACE  87 

fables  and  the  second  in  the  form  of  "Parley- 
ings"  with  worthies  of  past  centuries. 

It  may  be  worth  while  for  the  benefit  of  the 
reader  not  thoroughly  familiar  with  these  later 
poems  to  pass  quickly  in  review  the  problems 
in  them  upon  which  Browning  bends  his  poet's 
insight. 

Nothing  bears  upon  the  grounds  of  moral 
action  more  disastrously  than  blind  fatalism, 
and  while  there  have  been  many  evil  forms  of 
this  doctrine  in  the  past  there  has  probably 
been  none  worse  than  the  modern  form,  be- 
cause it  seems  to  have  sanction  in  the  scien- 
tific doctrines  of  the  conservation  of  energy, 
the  persistence  of  heredity,  and  the  survival 
of  the  fittest.  Even  the  wise  and  the  thought- 
ful with  wills  atrophied  by  scientific  phases  of 
fatalism  allow  themselves  to  drift  upon  what 
they  call  the  laws  of  development,  possessing 
evidently  no  realizing  sense  that  the  will  of 
man,  whether  it  be  in  the  last  analysis  abso- 
lutely free  or  not,  is  a  prime  factor  in  the  work- 
ing of  these  laws.  Such  people  will  hesitate, 
therefore,  to  throw  in  their  voices  upon  either 
side  in  the  solution  of  great  national  problems, 
because,  things  being  bound  to  follow  the 
laws  of  development,  what  matters  a  single 
voice !  Such  arguments  were  frequently  heard 
among  the  wise  in  our  own  country  during  the 


88     BROWNING  AND  HIS  CENTURY 

Cuban  and  Philippine  campaigns.  Upon  this 
attitude  of  mind  the  poet  gives  his  opinion 
in  the  first  of  "Ferishtah's  Fancies,"  "The 
Eagle."  It  is  a  strong  plea  for  the  exercise 
of  those  human  impulses  that  lead  to  action. 
The  will  to  serve  the  world  is  the  true  force 
from  God.  Every  man,  though  he  be  the  last 
link  in  a  chain  of  causes  over  which  he  had  no 
control,  can,  at  least,  have  a  determining 
influence  upon  the  direction  in  which  the  next 
link  shall  be  forged.  Ferishtah  appears  upon 
the  scene,  himself,  a  fatalist,  leaving  himself 
wholly  in  God's  hands,  until  he  is  taught  by 
the  dream  God  sent  him  that  man's  part  is 
to  act  as  he  saw  the  eagle  act,  succoring  the 
helpless,  not  to  play  the  part  of  the  helpless 
birdlings. 

Another  phase  of  the  same  thought  is 
brought  out  in  "A  Camel  Driver,"  where  the 
discussion  turns  upon  punishment.  The 
point  is,  if,  as  Ferishtah  declares,  the  sinner 
is  not  to  be  punished  eternally,  then  why 
should  man  trouble  himself  to  punish  him? 
Universalist  doctrines  are  here  put  into  the 
mouth  of  Ferishtah,  and  not  a  few  modern 
philanthropists  would  agree  with  Ferishtah's 
questioners  that  punishment  for  sins  (the 
manifestations  of  inherited  tendencies  for 
which  the  sinners  are  not  responsible)  is 


PROMISE  OF  PEACE  89 

no  longer  admissible.  Ferishtah's  answer 
amounts  to  this.  That  no  matter  what 
causes  for  beneficent  ends  may  be  visible  to 
the  Divine  mind  in  the  allowance  of  the  ex- 
istence of  sin,  nor  yet  the  fact  that  Divine 
love  demands  that  punishment  shall  not  be 
eternal;  man  must  regard  sin  simply  from 
the  human  point  of  view  as  absolute  evil,  and 
must  will  to  work  for  its  annihilation.  It 
follows  then  that  the  punishing  of  a  sinner  is 
the  means  by  which  he  may  be  taught  to 
overcome  the  sin.  There  is  the  added  thought, 
also,  that  the  suffering  of  the  conscience  over 
the  subtler  sins  which  go  unpunished  is  all  the 
hell  one  needs. 

Another  doctrine  upon  which  the  nine- 
teenth-century belief  in  progress  as  the  law  of 
life  has  set  its  seal  is  that  of  the  pursuit  of 
happiness,  or  the  striving  for  the  greatest  good 
of  the  whole  number  in  which  oneself  is  not 
to  be  excluded.  With  this  doctrine  Browning 
shows  himself  in  full  sympathy  in  "Two  Cam- 
els," wherein  Ferishtah  contends  that  only 
through  the  development  of  individual  happi- 
ness and  the  experiencing  of  many  forms  of 
joyousness  can  one  help  others  to  happiness 
and  joyousness,  while  in  "Plot  Culture"  the 
enjoyment  of  human  emotion  as  a  means  of 
developing  the  soul  is  emphasized. 


90     BROWNING  AND  HIS  CENTURY 

The  relation  of  good  and  evil  in  their 
broader  aspects  occupy  the  poet's  attention 
in  others  of  this  group.  Nineteenth-century 
thought  brought  about  a  readjustment  of  these 
relations.  Good  and  evil  as  absolutely  de- 
finable entities  gave  place  to  the  doctrine  that 
good  and  evil  are  relative  terms,  a  phrase 
which  we  sometimes  forget  must  be  under- 
stood in  two  ways:  first,  that  good  and  evil 
are  relative  to  the  state  of  society  in  which 
they  exist.  What  may  be  good  according 
to  the  ethics  of  a  Fejee  Islander  would  not 
hold  hi  the  civilized  society  of  to-day.  This 
is  the  evil  of  lack  of  development  which  in  the 
long  run  becomes  less.  On  the  other  hand, 
there  is  the  evil  of  suffering  and  pain  which 
it  is  more  difficult  to  reconcile  with  the  idea 
of  omnipotent  power.  In  "Mihrab  Shah," 
Browning  gives  a  solution  of  this  problem 
in  consonance  with  the  idea  that  were  it 
not  for  evil  we  should  not  have  learned  how 
to  appreciate  the  good,  to  work  for  it,  and, 
in  doing  so,  bring  about  progress. 

To  his  pupil,  worried  over  this  problem, 
Ferishtah  points  out  that  evil  in  the  form  of 
bodily  suffering  has  given  rise  to  the  beautiful 
sentiments  of  pity  and  sympathy.  Having 
proved  in  this  way  that  good  really  grows 
out  of  evil,  there  is  still  the  query,  shall  evil 


PROMISE  OF  PEACE  91 

be  encouraged  in  order  that  good  may  be 
evolved  ?  "  No ! "  Ferishtah  declares,  man 
bound  by  man's  conditions  is  obliged  to  esti- 
mate as  "fair  or  foul  right,  wrong,  good,  evil, 
what  man's  faculty  adjudges  as  such,"  there- 
fore the  man  will  do  all  he  can  to  relieve  the  suf- 
fering or  poor  Mihrab  Shah  with  a  fig  plaster. 

The  final  answers,  then,  which  Browning 
gives  to  the  ethical  problems  which  grew  out 
of  the  acceptance  of  modern  scientific  doc- 
trines are,  in  brief,  that  man  shall  use  that 
will-power  of  which  he  feels  himself  possessed 
-  the  power  really  distinguishing  him  from 
the  brute  creation  —  in  working  against  what- 
ever appears  to  him  to  be  evil;  while  that  good 
for  which  he  shall  work  is  the  greatest  happi- 
ness of  all. 

In  the  remaining  poems  of  the  group  we 
have  the  poet's  mature  word  upon  the  philo- 
sophical doctrine  of  the  relativity  of  knowl- 
edge, a  doctrine  which  received  the  most 
elaborate  demonstration  from  Herbert  Spen- 
cer in  many  directions.  It  is  insisted  upon  in 
"Cherries,"  "The  Sun,"  in  "A  Bean  Stripe 
also  Apple  Eating,"  and  especially  in  that 
remarkable  poem,  "A  Pillar  at  Sebzevar." 
That  knowledge  fails  is  the  burden  of  these 
poems.  Knowledge  the  golden  is  but  lac- 
quered ignorance,  as  gain  to  be  mistrusted. 


92     BROWNING  AND  HIS  CENTURY 

Curiously  enough,  this  contention  of  Brown- 
ing's has  been  the  cause  of  most  of  the  criti- 
cisms against  him  as  a  thinker,  yet  the  deepest 
thinkers  of  to-day  as  well  as  many  in  the  past 
have  held  the  opinio  in  some  form  or  another 
that  the  intellect  was  unable  to  solve  the 
mysterious  problems  of  the  universe.  Even 
the  metaphysicians  who  build  their  unstable 
air  castles  on  a  priori  ideas  declare  these  ideas 
cannot  be  matters  of  mere  intellectual  per- 
ception, but  must  be  intuitions  of  the  higher 
reason.  Browning,  however,  does  not  rest 
in  the  mere  assertion  that  the  intellect  fails. 
From  this  truth,  so  disconcerting  to  many,  he 
draws  immense  comfort.  Though  intellectual 
knowledge  be  mistrusted  as  gain,  it  is  not  to  be 
mistrusted  as  means  to  gain,  for  through  its 
very  failure  it  becomes  a  promise  of  greater 
things. 

"Friend,"  quoth  Ferishtah  in  "A  Pillar  of 
Sebzevar, " 

"As  gain  —  mistrust  it!    Nor  as  means  to  gain: 

Lacquer  we  learn  by:  cast  in  firing-pot, 

We  learn  —  when  what  seemed  ore  assayed  proves  dross 

Surelier  true  gold's  worth,  guess  how  purity 

I'  the  lode  were  precious  could  one  light  on  ore 

Clarified  up  to  test  of  crucible. 

The  prize  is  in  the  process:  knowledge  means 

Ever-renewed  assurance  by  defeat 

That  victory  is  somehow  still  to  reach." 


PROMISE  OF  PEACE  93 

For  men  with  minds  of  the  type  of  Spencer's 
this  negative  assurance  of  the  Infinite  is 
sufficient,  but  human  beings  as  a  rule  will  not 
rest  satisfied  with  such  cold  abstractions. 
Though  Job  said  thousands  of  years,  ago 
"Who  by  searching  can  find  out  God,"  man- 
kind still  continues  to  search.  They  long  to 
know  something  of  the  nature  of  the  divine 
as  well  as  to  be  assured  of  its  existence.  In 
this  very  act  of  searching  Browning  declares 
the  divine  becomes  most  directly  manifest. 

From  the  earliest  times  of  which  we  have 
any  record  man  has  been  aspiring  toward  God. 
Many  times  has  he  thought  he  had  found 
him,  but  with  enlarged  perceptions  he  dis- 
covered later  that  what  he  had  found  was  only 
God's  image  built  up  out  of  his  own  human 
experiences. 

This  search  of  man  for  the  divine  is  de- 
scribed with  great  power  and  originality  in  the 
Fancy  called  "The  Sun,"  under  the  symbol  of 
the  man  who  seeks  the  prime  Giver  that  he 
may  give  thanks  where  it  is  due  for  a  pala- 
table fig.  This  search  for  God,  Browning  calls 
love,  meaning  by  that  the  moving,  aspiring 
force  of  the  whole  universe  in  its  multifarious 
manifestations,  from  the  love  that  goes  forth 
in  thanks  for  benefits  received,  through  the 
aspiration  of  the  artist  toward  beauty,  of  the 


94     BROWNING  AND  HIS  CENTURY 

lover  toward  human  sympathy,  even  of  the 
scientist  toward  knowledge,  to  the  lover  of 
humanity  like  Ferishtah,  who  declares,  "I 
know  nothing  save  that  love  I  can,  bound- 
lessly, endlessly. " 

The  poet  argues  from  this  that  if  mankind 
has  with  ever-increasing  fervor  aspired  toward 
a  God  of  Love,  and  has  ever  developed 
toward  broader  conceptions  of  human  love, 
it  is  only  reasonable  to  infer  that  in  his  nature 
God  has  some  attribute  which  corresponds  to 
human  love,  though  it  transcend  our  most 
exalted  imagining  of  it. 

At  the  end  of  the  century  a  book  was 
written  in  America  in  which  an  argument  simi- 
lar to  this  was  used  to  prove  the  existence  of 
God.  This  book  was  "Through  Nature  to 
God,"  by  John  Fiske,  whose  earlier  work, 
"Cosmic Philosophy, "did  much  to  familiarize 
the  American  reading  public  with  the  evolu- 
tionary philosophy  of  Spencer. 

"Fiske  claimed  that  his  theory  was  en- 
tirely original,  yet  no  one  familiar  with  the 
thought  of  Browning  could  fail  to  see  the 
similarity  of  their  points  of  view.  Fiske 
based  his  proof  upon  analogies  drawn  from 
the  evolution  of  organic  life  in  following  out 
the  law  of  the  adjustment  of  inner  to  outer 
relations.  For  example,  since  the  eye  has 


HERBERT  SPENCER 


PROMISE  OF  PEACE  95 

through  aeons  of  time  gradually  adjusted  it- 
self into  harmony  with  light,  why  should  not 
man's  search  for  God  be  the  gradual  adjust- 
ment of  the  soul  into  harmony  with  the 
infinite  spirit?  This  adjustment,  as  Browning 
expresses  it,  is  that  of  human  love  to  divine 
love. 

Other  modern  thinkers,  notably  Schleier- 
macher  in  Germany  and  Shaftsbury  in  Eng- 
land, have  placed  the  basis  of  religious  truth 
in  feeling.  The  idea  is  thus  not  a  new  one. 
Yet  in  Browning's  treatment  of  it  the  con- 
ception has  taken  on  new  life,  partly  because 
of  the  intensity  of  conviction  with  which  it  is 
expounded  in  these  later  poems,  and  partly 
because  of  its  having  been  so  closely  knit  into 
the  scientific  thought  of  the  century. 

Optimistically  the  thought  is  finally  rounded 
out  in  "A  Bean  Stripe  also  Apple  Eating,"  in 
which  Ferishtah  argues  that  life  in  spite  of  the 
evil  in  it  seems  to  him  on  the  whole  good. 
He  cannot  believe  that  evil  is  not  meant  to 
serve  a  good  purpose  since  he  is  so  sure  that 
God  is  infinite  in  love. 

From  all  this  it  will  be  seen  that  Browning 
accepts  with  Spencerians  the  negative  proof 
of  God  growing  out  of  the  failure  of  intellect 
to  grasp  the  realities  underlying  all  phenom- 
ena, but  adds  to  it  the  positive  proof  based 


96     BROWNING  AND  HIS  CENTURY 

upon  emotion.  The  true  basis  of  belief  is  the 
intuition  of  God  that  comes  from  the  direct 
revelation  of  feeling  in  the  human  heart, 
which  has  been  at  once  the  motive  force  of  the 
search  for  God  and  the  basis  of  a  conception 
of  the  nature  of  God. 

It  was  a  stroke  of  genius  on  the  part  of  the 
poet  to  present  such  problems  in  Persian 
guise,  for  Persia  stands  in  Zoroastrianism 
for  the  dualism  which  Ferishtah  with  his 
progressive  spirit  decries  in  his  recognition  of 
the  part  evil  plays  in  the  development  of 
good,  and  through  Mahometanism  for  the 
Fatalism  Ferishtah  learned  to  cast  from  him. 
The  Persian  atmosphere  is  preserved  through- 
out not  only  by  the  introduction  constantly  of 
Persian  allusions  traceable  to  the  great  Per- 
sian epic,  "The  Shah  Nameh,"  but  by  the 
telling  of  fables  in  the  Persian  manner  to 
point  the  morals  intended. 

With  the  exception  of  the  first  Fancy,  de- 
rived from  a  fable  of  Bidpai's,  we  have  the 
poet's  own  word  that  all  the  others  are 
inventions  of  his  own.  These  clever  stories 
make  the  poems  lively  reading  in  spite  of  their 
ethical  content.  Ferishtah  is  drawn  with 
strong  strokes.  Wise  and  clever  he  stands 
before  us,  reminding  us  at  times  of  Socrates  — 
never  at  a  loss  for  an  answer  no  matter  what 


PROMISE  OF  PEACE  97 

bothersome  questions  his  pupils  may  pro- 
pound. 

If  we  see  the  thoughtful  and  brilliant 
Browning  in  the  "Fancies"  proper,  we  per- 
haps see  even  more  clearly  the  emotional  and 
passionate  Browning  in  the  lyrics  which  add 
variety  and  an  unwonted  charm  to  the  whole. 
This  feature  is  also  borrowed  from  Persian 
form,  an  interesting  example  of  which  has  been 
given  to  English  readers  in  Edwin  Arnold's 
"Gulistan"  or  "Rose  Garden"  of  the  poet 
Sa'di.  Indeed  Browning  evidently  derived 
the  hint  for  his  humorous  prologue  in  which  he 
likens  the  poems  to  follow  to  an  Italian  dish 
made  of  ortolans  on  toast  with  a  bitter  sage 
leaf,  symbolizing  sense,  sight,  and  song  from 
Sa'di's  preface  to  the  "Rose Garden,"  wherein 
he  says,  "Yet  will  men  of  light  and  learning, 
from  whom  the  true  countenance  of  a  dis- 
course is  not  concealed,  be  well  aware  that 
herein  the  pearls  of  good  counsel  which  heal 
are  threaded  on  strings  of  right  sense;  that  the 
bitter  physic  of  admonition  is  constantly 
mingled  with  the  honey  of  good  humor,  so  that 
the  spirits  of  listeners  grow  not  sad,  and  that 
they  remain  not  exempt  from  blessings  of 
acceptance. " 

A  further  interest  attaches  to  these  lyrics 
because  they  form  a  series  of  emotional 


98     BROWNING  AND  HIS  CENTURY 

phases  in  the  soul-life  of  two  lovers  whom  we 
are  probably  justified  in  regarding  as  Mr.  and 
Mrs.  Browning.  One  naturally  thinks  of 
them  as  companion  pictures  to  Mrs.  Brown- 
ing's "Sonnets  from  the  Portuguese."  In 
these  the  sunrise  of  a  great  love  is  portrayed 
with  intense  and  exalted  passion,  while  the 
lyrics  in  "Ferishtah's  Fancies"  reflect  the 
subsequent  development  of  such  a  love, 
through  the  awakening  of  whole  new  realms  of 
feeling,  wherein  love  for  humanity  is  enlarged 
criticism  from  the  one  beloved  welcome;  all 
the  little  trials  of  life  dissolved  in  the  new 
light;  and  divine  love  realized  with  a  force 
never  before  possible. 

Do  we  not  see  a  living  portrait  of  the  two 
poets  in  the  lyric  "  So  the  head  aches  and  the 
limbs  are  faint? "  Many  a  hint  may  be 
found  in  the  Browning  letters  to  prove  that 
Mrs.  Browning  with  just  such  afrail  body 
possessed  a  fire  of  spirit  that  carried  her  con- 
stantly toward  attainment,  while  he,  with  all 
the  vigor  of  splendid  health,  could  with  truth 
have  frequently  said,  "In  the  soul  of  me  sits 
sluggishness. "  These  exquisite  lyrics,  which, 
whether  they  conform  to  Elizabethan  models 
or  not,  are  as  fine  as  anything  ever  done  in 
this  form,  are  crowned  by  the  epilogue  in 
which  we  hear  the  stricken  husband  crying 


PROMISE  OF  PEACE  99 

out  to  her  whom  twenty  years  earlier  he  had 
called  his  "lyric  love,"  in  a  voice  doubting, 
yet  triumphing  in  the  thought  that  his  life- 
long optimism  is  the  light  radiating  from  the 
halo  which  her  human  love  had  irised  round 
his  head. 

No  more  emphatic  way  than  the  inter- 
spersion  of  these  emotional  lyrics  could  have 
been  chosen  to  bring  home  the  poet's  con- 
viction of  the  value  of  emotion  in  finding  a 
positive  basis  for  religious  belief. 

In  the  "Parley ings"  the  discussions  turn 
principally  upon  artistic  problems  and  their 
relation  to  modern  thought.  Four  out  of  the 
seven  were  inspired  by  artist,  poet  or  musi- 
cian. The  forgotten  worthies  whom  Brown- 
ing rescued  from  oblivion  make  their  appeal 
to  him  upon  various  grounds  that  connect 
them  with  the  present. 

Bernard  de  Mandeville  evidently  caught 
Browning's  fancy,  because  in  his  satirical 
poem,  "The  Grumbling  Hive,"  he  forestalled, 
by  a  defence  of  the  Duke  of  Marlborough's 
war  policy,  the  doctrine  of  the  relativity  of 
good  and  evil.  This  subject,  though  so  fully 
treated  in  the  "Fancies,"  still  continued  to 
fascinate  Browning,  who  seemed  to  feel  the 
need  of  thinking  his  way  through  all  its 
implications.  Fresh  interest  is  added  in  this 


100   BROWNING  AND  HIS  CENTURY 

case  because  the  objector  in  the  argument  was 
the  poet's  contemporary  Carlyle,  whose  well- 
known  pessimism  in  regard  to  the  existence 
of  evil  is  graphically  presented. 

Browning  clenches  his  side  of  the  argument 
with  an  original  and  daring  variation  upon 
the  Prometheus  myth  led  up  to  by  one  of  the 
most  magnificent  passages  in  the  whole  range 
of  his  poetry,  and  probably  the  finest  exam- 
ple anywhere  in  literature  of  a  description  of 
nature  as  interpreted  by  the  laws  of  cosmic 
evolution.  A  comparison  of  this  passage 
with  the  one  in  "Paracelsus"  brings  out  very 
clearly  the  exact  measure  of  the  advance  in  the 
poet's  thought  during  the  fifty  years  between 
which  they  were  written  — 1835  and  1887. 
While  in  the  "Paracelsus"  passage  it  is  the 
thought  of  the  joy  in  the  creator's  soul  for  his 
creations,  and  the  participation  of  mankind 
in  this  joy  of  progression  while  pleasure 
climbs  its  heights  forever  and  forever, 
which  occupies  the  poet's  mind,  in  the  later 
passage,  there  is  no  attempt  at  a  definite 
conception  of  the  divine  nature.  Force 
represented  in  the  sunlight  is  described  as 
developing  life  upon  the  earth.  The  thrill 
of  this  life-giving  power  is  felt  by  all  things, 
and  is  unquestioningly  accepted  and  delighted 
in. 


PROMISE  OF  PEACE  101 

"Everywhere 

Did  earth  acknowledge  Sun's  embrace  sublime 
Thrilling  her  to  the  heart  of  things:  since  there 
No  ore  ran  liquid,  no  spar  branched  anew, 
No  arrowy  crystal  gleamed,  but  straightway  grew 
Glad  through  the  inrush  —  glad  nor  more  nor  less 
Than,  'neath  his  gaze,  forest  and  wilderness, 
Hill,  dale,  land,  sea,  the  whole  vast  stretch  and  spread, 
The  universal  world  of  creatures  bred 
By  Sun's  munificence,  alike  gave  praise. " 

Man  alone  questions.  His  mind  reaches 
out  for  knowledge  of  the  cause;  he  would 
know  its  nature.  Man's  mind  will  not  give 
any  definite  answer  to  this  question.  But 
Prometheus  offered  an  artifice  whereby  man's 
mind  is  satisfied.  He  drew  sun's  rays  into  a 
focus  plain  and  true.  The  very  sun  in  little: 
made  fire  burn  and  henceforth  do  man  service. 
Denuded  of  its  scientific  and  mystical  sym- 
bolism, Browning  thus  makes  the  Prometheus 
myth  teach  his  favorite  doctrine,  namely, 
that  the  image  of  love  formed  in  the  human 
heart  by  means  of  the  burning  glass  supplied 
by  sense  and  feeling  is  a  symbol  of  infinite 
love. 

Daniel  Bartoli,  a  Jesuit  of  the  seventeenth 
century  who  is  dyed  and  doubly  dyed  in  super- 
stition, is  set  up  by  Browning  in  the  next 
poem  simply  to  be  knocked  down  again  upon 
the  ground  that  all  the  legendary  saints 


102   BROWNING  AND  HIS  CENTURY 

he  worshipped  could  not  compare  with  a 
real  woman  the  poet  knows.  The  romantic 
story  of  the  lady  is  told  in  Browning's  most 
fascinating  narrative  style,  so  rapid  and 
direct  that  it  has  all  the  force  of  a  dramatic 
sketch.  The  heroine's  claim  upon  the  poet's 
admiration  consists  in  her  recognition  of  the 
sacredness  of  love,  which  she  will  not  dis- 
honor for  worldly  considerations,  and  finding 
her  betrothed  incapable  of  attaining  her  height 
of  nobleness,  she  leaves  him  free. 

This  story  bears  upon  the  poet's  philoso- 
phy as  it  reflects  his  attitude  toward  human 
love,  which  he  considers  so  clearly  a  revelation 
that  any  treatment  of  it  not  absolutely  noble 
and  true  to  the  highest  ideals  is  a  sin  against 
heaven  itself. 

George  Bubb  Dodington  is  the  black  sheep 
of  these  later  poems.  He  gives  the  poet  an 
opportunity  to  let  loose  all  his  subtlety  and 
sarcasm,  while  the  reader  may  exercise  his  wits 
in  discovering  that  the  poet  assumes  to  agree 
with  Dodington  in  his  doubtful  doctrine  of 
serving  the  state  with  an  eye  always  upon  his 
own  private  welfare,  and  pretends  to  criticise 
him  only  for  his  method  of  attaining  his  ends. 
His  method  is  to  disclaim  that  he  works  for 
any  other  good  than  that  of  the  State  — 
a  proposition  so  preposterous  in  his  case 


PROMISE  OF  PEACE  103 

that  nobody  would  believe  it.  The  poet  then 
presents  what  purports  to  be  the  correct 
method  of  successful  statesmanship  —  namely, 
to  pose  as  a  superior  being  endowed  with  the 
divine  right  to  rule,  treating  everybody  as 
his  puppet,  and  entirely  scornful  of  any 
criticisms  against  himself.  If  he  will  adopt 
this  attitude  he  may  change  his  tactics 
every  year  and  the  people,  instead  of 
suspecting  his  sincerity,  will  think  that  he 
has  wise  reasons  beyond  their  insight  for  his 
changes.  The  poem  is  a  powerful,  intensely 
cynical  argument  against  the  imperialistic 
temper  and  in  favor  of  liberal  government. 
This  means  for  the  individual  not  only  the 
right  but  the  power  to  judge  for  himself, 
instead  of  being  obliged  to  depend,  because  of 
his  own  inefficiency,  upon  the  leadership  of  the 
over-man,  whose  intentions  are  unfortunately 
too  seldom  to  be  trusted. 

The  poet  called  from  the  shades  by  Brown- 
ing, Christopher  Smart,  is  celebrated  in  the 
world  of  criticism  for  having  only  once  in  his  lif e 
written  a  great  poem.  The  eulogies  upon  the 
beauties  of  "The  Song  of  David"  might  not 
be  echoed  by  all  lay  readers  of  poetry;  nor 
is  it  of  any  moment  whether  Browning 
actually  agreed  with  the  conclusions  of  the 
critics,  since  the  episode  is  used  merely  as  a 


104   BROWNING  AND  HIS  CENTURY 

text  for  discussing  the  problem  of  beauty 
versus  truth  in  art.  Should  the  poet's  prov- 
ince be  simply  to  record  his  vision  of  the 
beauty  and  the  strength  of  nature  and  the 
universe  —  visions  which  come  to  him  in 
moments  of  inspiration  such  as  that  which 
came  once  to  Christopher  Smart?  Browning 
answers  the  question  characteristically  with 
his  feet  upon  the  earth.  The  visions  of  poets 
should  not  be  considered  as  ends  in  themselves, 
but  as  material  to  be  used  for  greater  ends. 

The  poet  should  find  his  inspiration  in  the 
human  heart,  and  climb  to  heaven  by  its 
means,  not  investigate  the  heavens  first. 
Diligently  must  he  study  mankind,  and  teach 
as  man  may  through  his  knowledge. 

In  "Francis  Furini"  the  subject  is  the  nude 
in  art.  The  keynote  is  struck  by  the  poet's 
declaring  he  will  never  believe  the  tale  told 
by  Baldinicci  that  Furini  ordered  all  his 
pictures  in  which  there  were  nude  figures 
burned.  He  expresses  his  indignation  at  the 
tale  vigorously  at  some  length,  showing 
plainly  his  own  sympathies. 

The  passage  in  the  poem  bearing  more 
especially  upon  the  present  discussion  is  the 
lecture  by  Furini  imagined  by  the  poet  to 
have  been  delivered  before  a  London  audience. 
It  is  a  long  and  recondite  speech  in  which 


PROMISE  OF  PEACE  105 

the  scientific  and  the  intuitional  methods  of 
arriving  at  truth  are  compared.  While  the 
scientific  method  is  acknowledged  to  be  of 
value,  the  intuitional  method  is  claimed  as 
by  far  the  more  important. 

A  philippic  against  Greek  art  and  its 
imitation  is  delivered  by  the  poet  in  the 
"  Parleying  with  Gerard  de  Lairesse,"  whom  he 
makes  the  scapegoat  of  his  strictures,  on  the 
score  of  a  book  Lairesse  wrote  in  which  was 
described  a  walk  through  a  Dutch  landscape 
when  every  feature  was  transmogrified  by  clas- 
sic imaginings. 

To  this  good  soul,  an  old  sepulcher  struck  by 
lightning  became  the  tomb  of  Phaeton,  and 
an  old  cartwheel  half  buried  in  the  sand  near 
by,  the  Chariot  of  the  Sun. 

In  a  spirit  of  bravado  Browning  proceeds  to 
show  what  he  himself  could  make  of  a  walk 
provided  he  condescended  to  illuminate  it 
by  classic  metaphor  and  symbol,  and  a  re- 
markable passage  is  the  result.  It  occupies 
from  the  eighth  to  the  twelfth  stanza.  It 
is  meant  to  be  in  derision  of  a  grandiloquent, 
classically  embroidered  style  but  so  splendid 
is  the  language,  so  haunting  the  pictures,  the 
symbolism  so  profound  that  it  is  as  if  a  God 
were  showing  some  poor  weakling  mortal 
how  not  to  do  it  —  and  through  his  omni- 


106   BROWNING  AND  HIS  CENTURY 

science  must  perforce  create  something  won- 
drously  beautiful.  The  double  feeling  pro- 
duced in  reading  this  passage  only  adds  to  its 
interest.  After  thus  classicizing  in  a  manner 
that  might  make  Euripides,  himself,  turn 
green  with  envy,  he  nonchalantly  remarks: 

"Enough,  stop  further  fooling,"  and  to 
show  how  a  modern  poet  greets  a  landscape  he 
flings  in  the  perfectly  simple  and  irresistible 
little  lyric: 

"Dance,  yellows,  and  whites  and  reds." 

The  poet's  strictures  upon  classicism  are 
entirely  consonant  with  his  philosophy,  plac- 
ing as  he  does  the  paramount  importance  on 
living  realities,  "Do  and  nowise  dream,"  he 
exclaims: 

"Earth's  young  significance  is  all  to  learn; 
The  dead  Greek  love  lies  buried  in  its  urn 
Where  who  seeks  fire  finds  ashes." 

The  "Parleying"  with  Charles  Avison  is 
more  a  poem  of  moods  than  any  of  the  others. 
The  poet's  profound  appreciation  of  music  is 
reflected  in  his  claiming  it  as  the  highest 
artistic  expression  possible  to  man.  Sadness 
comes  to  him,  however,  at  the  thought  of  the 
ephemeralness  of  its  forms,  a  fact  that  is  borne 
in  on  him  because  of  the  madequateness  of 


PROMISE  OF  PEACE  107 

Avison's  old  march  styled  "grand."  He 
finally  emerges  triumphantly  from  this  mood 
of  sadness  through  the  realization  that  music 
is  the  most  perfect  symbol  of  the  evolution  of 
spirit,  of  which  the  central  truth  — 

"The  inmost  care  where  truth  abides  in  fulness" — 

as  Paracelsus  expresses  it,  remains  always 
permanent,  while  the  form  is  ever  changing, 
but  though  ever  changing  it  is  of  absolute 
value  to  the  time  when  the  spirit  found  ex- 
pression in  it.  Furthermore,  in  any  form 
once  possessing  beauty,  by  throwing  one's 
self  into  its  historical  atmosphere  the  beauty 
may  be  regained. 

The  poem  has,  of  course,  a  still  larger 
significance  in  relation  to  all  forms  of  truth 
and  beauty  of  which  every  age  has  had  its 
living,  immortal  examples,  the  "broken 
arcs"  which  finally  will  make  the  perfect 
round,  each  arc  perfect  in  itself,  and  thus  the 
poet's  final  paean  is  joyous,  "Never  dream 
that  what  once  lived  shall  ever  die. " 

The  prologue  of  this  series  of  poems  pre- 
figures the  thought  in  a  striking  dialogue 
between  Apollo  and  the  Fates  wherein  the 
Fates  symbolize  the  natural  forces  of  life, 
behind  which  is  Zeus  or  divine  power;  Apollo's 
light  symbolizes  the  glamour  which  hope  and 


108   BROWNING  AND  HIS  CENTURY 

aspiration  throw  over  the  events  of  human 
existence,  without  actually  giving  any  assur- 
ance of  its  worth,  and  the  wine  of  Bacchus 
symbolizes  feeling,  by  means  of  which  a 
perception  of  the  absolute  is  gained.  Man's 
reason,  guided  by  the  divine,  accepts  this 
revelation  through  feeling  not  as  actual  knowl- 
edge of  the  absolute  which  transcends  all  intel- 
lectual attempts  to  grasp  it,  but  as  a  promise 
sufficiently  assuring  to  take  him  through  the 
ills  and  uncertainties  of  life  with  faith  in  the 
ultimate  triumph  of  beauty  and  good. 

The  epilogue,  a  dialogue  between  John 
Fust  and  his  friends,  brings  home  the  thought 
once  more  in  another  form,  emphasizing  the 
fact  that  there  can  be  no  new  realm  of  actual, 
palpable  knowledge  opened  up  to  man  be- 
yond that  which  his  intellect  is  able  to  per- 
ceive. Once  having  gained  this  knowledge 
of  the  failure  of  intellectual  knowledge  to 
solve  what  Whitman  calls  the  "strangling 
problems"  of  life,  man's  part  is  to  follow 
onward  through  ignorance. 

"Dare  and  deserve! 

As  still  to  its  asymptote  speedeth  the  curve, 
So  approximates  Man  —  Thee,  who  reachable  not, 
Hast  formed  him  to  yearningly 

Follow  thy  whole 
Sole  and  single  omniscience!" 


PROMISE  OF  PEACE  109 

It  will  be  seen  from  this  review  of  the 
salient  points  enlarged  upon  by  Browning  in 
these  last  groups  of  poems  that  he  has  de- 
liberately set  himself  to  harmonize  the  intel- 
lectual and  the  intuitional  aspects  of  human 
consciousness.  He  has  sought  to  join  the 
hands  of  mind  and  spirit.  The  artistic  exu- 
berance of  Paracelsus  is  supplemented  by 
spiritual  fervor.  To  the  young  Browning,  the 
beauty  of  immortal,  joyous  life  pursuing  its 
heights  forever  was  as  a  radiant  vision,  to  the 
Browning  who  had  grappled  with  the  stran- 
gling problems  of  the  century  this  beauty  was 
not  so  distinctly  seen,  but  its  reality  was  felt 
with  all  the  depth  of  an  intensely  spiritual 
nature  —  a  nature  moreover  so  absolutely 
fearless,  that  it  could  unflinchingly  confront 
every  giant  of  doubt,  or  of  disillusionment 
which  science  in  its  pristine  egotism  had 
conjured  up,  saying  "Keep  to  thine  own  prov- 
ince, where  thou  art  indeed  powerful;  to  the 
threshold  of  the  eternal  we  may  come  through 
thy  ministrations,  but  the  consciousness  of 
divine  things  cometh  through  the  still  small 
voice  of  the  heart. " 

Thus,  while  he  accepted  every  law  relating 
to  phenomena  which  science  has  been  able  to 
formulate,  he  realized  the  futility  of  resting 
in  a  primal,  wholly  dehumanized  energy,  that 


110   BROWNING  AND  HIS  CENTURY 

is,  something  not  greater  but  less  than  its 
own  outcome,  humanity.  He  was  incapable 
of  any  such  absurdity  as  Clifford's  dictum 
that  "Reason,  intelligence  and  volition  are 
properties  of  a  complex  which  is  made  up  of 
elements,  themselves  not  rational,  not  intel- 
ligent, not  conscious."  Since  Clifford's  time, 
the  marked  differences  between  the  proc- 
esses of  a  psychic  being  like  man,  and  the 
processes  of  nature  have  been  so  fully  recog- 
nized and  so  carefully  defined  by  psycholo- 
gists that  Browning's  insistence  upon  making 
man  the  center  whence  truth  radiates  has  had 
full  confirmation. 

Theodore  Merz  has  summed  up  these 
psychological  conclusions  in  regard  to  the 
characteristics  peculiar  to  man  as  distin- 
guished from  all  the  rest  of  the  universe  in 
the  following  words: 

"There  are  two  properties  with  which  we  are  familiar 
through  common  sense  and  ordinary  reflection  as  belonging 
especially  to  the  phenomena  of  our  inner  self-conscious  life, 
and  these  properties  seem  to  lie  quite  beyond  the  sphere  and 
the  possibilities  of  the  ordinary  methods  of  exact  research. 

"As  we  ascend  in  the  scale  of  human  beings  we  become 
aware  that  they  exhibit  a  special  kind  of  unity  which  cannot 
be  defined,  a  unity  which,  even  when  apparently  lost  in 
periods  of  unconsciousness,  is  able  to  reestablish  itself  by  the 
wonderful  and  indefinable  property  called  'memory'  —  a 
center  which  can  only  be  very  imperfectly  localized  —  a 


PROMISE  OF  PEACE  111 

together  which  is  more  than  a  mechanical  sum;  in  fact  we 
rise  to  the  conception  of  individuality,  that  which  cannot  be 
divided  and  put  together  again  out  of  its  parts. 

"The  second  property  is  still  more  remarkable.  The  world 
of  the  inner  processes  which  accompany  the  higher  forms  of 
nervous  development  in  human  beings  is  capable  of  un- 
limited growth  and  it  is  capable  of  this  by  a  process  of 
becoming  external:  it  becomes  external,  and,  as  it  were,  per- 
petuates itself  in  language,  literature,  science  and  art,  legis- 
lation, society,  and  the  like.  We  have  no  analogue  of  this  in 
physical  nature,  where  matter  and  energy  are  constant 
quantities  and  where  the  growth  and  multiplication  of  living 
matter  is  merely  a  conversion  of  existing  matter  and  energy 
into  special  altered  forms  without  increase  or  decrease  in 
quantity.  But  the  quantity  of  the  inner  thing  is  continually 
on  the  increase;  in  fact,  this  increase  is  the  only  thing  of  in- 
terest in  the  whole  world. " 

Thus  the  modern  psychologist  and  the  poet 
who  in  the  early  days  of  the  century  said  the 
soul  was  the  only  thing  worth  study  join 
hands. 

The  passage  already  referred  to  in  "Francis 
Furini"  presents  most  explicitly  the  objec- 
tive or  intellectual  method  and  the  subjec- 
tive or  intuitional  method  of  the  search  for 
truth. 

Furini  is  made  to  question  — 

"Evolutionists! 

At  truth  I  glimpse  from  depths,  you  glance  from  heights, 
Our  stations  for  discovery  opposites, 
How  should  ensue  agreement!    I  explain." 


112   BROWNING  AND  HIS  CENTURY 

He  describes,  then,  how  the  search  of  the 
evolutionist  for  the  absolute  is  outside  of  man. 
"Tis  the  tip-top  of  things  to  which  you 
strain."  Arriving  at  the  spasm  which  sets 
things  going,  they  are  stopped,  and  since 
having  arrived  at  unconscious  energy,  they 
can  go  no  further,  they  now  drop  down  to  a 
point  where  atoms  somehow  begin  to  think, 
feel,  and  know  themselves  to  be,  and  the 
world's  begun  such  as  we  recognize  it.  This  is  a 
true  presentation  of  the  attitude  of  physicists 
and  chemists  to-day,  the  latter  especially 
holding  that  experiment  proves  that  in  the 
atoms  themselves  is  an  embryonic  form  of 
consciousness  and  will.  From  these  is  finally 
evolved  at  last  self-conscious  man.  But  after 
all  this  investigating  on  the  part  of  the 
evolutionist  what  has  been  gained?  Of  power 
—  that  is,  power  to  create  nature  or  life,  or 
even  to  understand  it  —  man  possesses  no  par- 
ticle, and  of  knowledge,  only  just  so  much  as 
to  show  that  it  ends  in  ignorance  on  every 
side.  This  is  the  result  of  the  objective 
search  for  truth.  But  begin  with  man  him- 
self, and  there  is  a  fact  upon  which  he  can 
take  a  sure  stand,  his  self -consciousness —  a 
"togetherness,"  as  Merz  says,  which  cannot 
be  explained  mathematically  by  the  adding 
up  of  atoms;  and  furthermore  an  inborn 


DAVID  STRAUSS 


PROMISE  OF  PEACE  113 

certainty  that  whatever  is  felt  to  be  within 
had  its  rise  or  cause  without:  "thus  blend  the 
conscious  I,  and  all  things  perceived  in  one 
Effect."  Through  this  subjective  perception 
of  an  all-powerful  cause  a  reflex  light  is 
thrown  back  upon  all  that  the  investigations 
of  the  intellect  have  accomplished.  The 
cause  is  no  longer  simply  blind  energy,  but 
must  itself  be  possessed  of  gifts  as  great 
and  still  greater  than  those  with  which  the 
soul  of  man  is  endowed.  The  forces  at  work 
in  nature  thus  become  instinct  with  wonder 
and  beauty,  the  good  and  evil  of  hie  reveal 
themselves  as  a  means  used  by  absolute 
Power  and  Love  for  the  perfecting  of  the  soul 
which  made  to  know  on  and  ever  must  know 

"All  to  be  known  at  any  halting  stage 
Of  [the]  soul's  progress,  such  as  earth,  where  wage 
War,  just  for  soul's  instruction,  pain  with  joy, 
Folly  with  wisdom,  all  that  works  annoy 
With  all  that  quiets  and  contents. " 

To  sum  up  —  our  investigations  into  Brown- 
ing's thought  show  him  to  be  a  type  pri- 
marily of  the  mystic.  Mysticism  in  its  most 
pronounced  forms  regards  the  emotions  of 
the  human  mind  as  supreme.  The  mystic, 
instead  of  allowing  the  intellectual  faculty 
to  lead  the  way,  degrades  it  to  an  inferior 


114   BROWNING  AND  HIS  CENTURY 

position  and  makes  it  entirely  subservient  to 
the  feelings.  In  some  moods  Browning  seems 
almost  to  belong  to  this  pronounced  type; 
for  example,  when  he  says  in  "A  Pillar  at 
Sebzevar,"  "Say  not  that  we  know,  rather 
that  we  love,  therefore  we  know  enough." 

It  must  be  remembered,  however,  that  he 
is  not  in  either  class  of  the  supernatural 
mystic,  one  of  which  supposes  truth  to  be 
gamed  by  a  fixed  supernatural  channel,  the 
other  that  it  is  gained  by  extraordinary 
supernatural  means.  On  the  contrary,  truth 
comes  to  Browning  in  pursuance  of  a  regular 
law  or  fact  of  the  inward  sensibility,  which 
may  be  defined  in  his  case  as  a  mode  of 
intuition.  His  intuition  of  God,  as  we  have 
seen,  is  based  upon  the  feeling  of  love  both 
in  its  human  and  its  abstract  aspects. 

But  this  is  not  all.  Upon  the  intellectual 
side  Browning  accepted  the  conclusions  of 
scientific  investigation  as  far  as  phenomena 
were  concerned,  and  while  he  denied  its  worth 
in  giving  direct  knowledge  of  the  Absolute, 
he  recognized  it  as  useful  because  of  its  very 
failure  in  strengthening  the  sense  of  the  exist- 
ence of  a  power  transcending  human  con- 
ception. "What  is  our  failure  here  but  a 
triumph's  evidence  of  the  fulness  of  the 
days?  "  And,  furthermore,  with  mystic  love 


PROMISE  OF  PEACE  115 

already  in  our  hearts,  all  knowledge  that  the 
scientist  may  bring  us  of  the  phenomena  of 
nature  and  life  only  adds  immeasurably  to 
our  wonder  and  awe  of  the  power  which  has 
brought  these  things  to  pass,  thus  "with 
much  more  knowledge"  comes  "always  much 
more  love." 

Once  more,  the  poet's  mysticism  is  tempered 
by  a  tinge  of  idealism.  There  are  several 
passages  in  his  poems,  notably  one  already 
quoted  from  Furini,  which  show  him  to  have 
had  a  perception  of  God  directly  through 
his  own  consciousness  by  means  of  what  the 
idealist  calls  the  higher  reason.  His  percep- 
tion, for  instance,  that  whatever  takes  place 
within  the  consciousness  had  its  rise  without 
and  that  this  external  origin  emanates  from 
God  is  the  idealist's  way  of  arriving  at  the 
absolute. 

Thus  we  see  that  into  Browning's  religious 
conceptions  enter  the  intuitions  of  the  artistic 
consciousness  as  illustrated  in  Paracelsus 
where  God  is  the  divine  artist  joying  in  his 
creations,  the  intuitions  of  the  intellect  which 
finds  in  the  failure  of  knowledge  to  probe  the 
secrets  of  the  universe  the  assurance  of  a 
transcendent  power  beyond  human  ken,  the 
intuition  of  the  higher  reason  which  affirms 
God  is,  and  the  intuitions  of  the  heart  which 


116    BROWNING  AND  HIS  CENTURY 

promise  that  God  is  love,  through  whom  is 
to  come  fulfilment  of  all  human  aspirations 
toward  Beauty,  Truth,  and  Love  in  immor- 
tality. 

If  these  are  all  points  which  have  been 
emphasized,  now  by  one,  now  by  another,  of 
the  vast  array  of  thinkers  who  have  crowded 
the  past  century,  there  is  no  one  who  to  my 
knowledge  has  so  completely  harmonized  the 
various  thought  tendencies  of  the  age,  and 
certainly  none  who  has  clothed  them  in  such 
a  wealth  of  imaginative  and  emotional  illus- 
tration. 

In  these  last  poems  Browning  appears  to 
borrow  an  apt  term  from  Whitman,  as  the 
"Answerer"  of  his  age.  In  them  he  has  un- 
questioningly  accepted  the  knowledge  which 
science  has  brought,  and,  recognizing  its  rela- 
tive character,  has  yet  interpreted  it  in  such 
a  way  as  to  make  it  subserve  the  highest 
ideals  in  ethics,  religion,  and  art.  Far  from 
reflecting  any  degeneration  in  Browning's 
philosophy  of  life,  these  poems  place  on  a 
firmer  basis  than  ever  thoughts  prominent 
in  his  poetry  from  the  first,  while  adding  to 
these  the  profounder  insight  into  life  which 
life's  experiences  had  brought  him. 

The  subject  matter  and  form  are  no  less 
remarkable  than  their  thought.  The  variety 


PROMISE  OF  PEACE  117 

in  both  is  almost  bewildering.  Religion  and 
fable,  romance  and  philosophy,  art  and  science 
all  commingled  in  rich  profusion;  everything 
in  language  —  talk  almost  colloquial,  dainty 
lyrics  full  of  exquisite  emotion,  and  grand 
passages  which  present  in  sweeping  images 
now  the  processes  of  cosmic  evolution,  now 
those  of  spiritual  evolution,  until  it  seems  as 
if  we  had  indeed  been  conducted  to  some 
vast  mountain  height,  whence  we  can  look 
forth  upon  the  century's  turbulent  seas  of 
thought,  into  which  flows  many  a  current 
from  the  past,  while  suspended  above  between 
the  sea  and  sky,  like  the  crucifix  in  Simons's 
wonderful  symbolic  picture  of  the  Middle 
Ages,  is  the  mystical  form  of  divine  love  and 
joy  which  Browning  has  made  symbolic  of 
the  nineteenth  century. 


Ill 


POLITICAL  TENDENCIES 

IN  THE  political  affairs  of  his  own  age  and 
country  Browning  as  a  poet  shows  little 
interest.  This  may  at  first  seem  strange,  for 
that  he  was  deeply  sympathetic  with  past 
historical  movements  indicating  a  growth 
toward  democratic  ideals  in  government  is 
abundantly  proved  by  his  choice  and  treat- 
ment of  historical  epochs  in  which  the  demo- 
cratic tendencies  were  peculiarly  evident. 
Why  then  did  he  not  give  us  dramatic  pictures 
of  the  Victorian  era,  in  which  as  perhaps  in 
no  other  era  of  English  history  the  yeast  of 
political  freedom  has  been  steadily  and  quietly 
working? 

There  were  probably  several  reasons  for 
his  failure  to  make  himself  felt  as  an  influence 
in  the  political  world  of  his  time.  In  the 
first  place,  he  was  preeminently  a  dramatic 
poet,  and  as  such  his  interest  was  in  the 
presentation  and  analysis  of  individual  char- 
acter as  it  might  work  itself  out  in  a  given 
historical  environment.  To  deal  with  con- 
ns 


POLITICAL  TENDENCIES          119 

temporaries  in  this  analytic  manner  would  be 
a  difficult  and  delicate  matter,  and,  as  we  see, 
in  those  instances  where  he  did  venture  upon 
an  analysis  of  English  contemporaries,  as  in 
the  case  of  Wiseman  (Bishop  Blougram), 
Carlyle  in  Bernard  de  Mandeville  and  in 
"George  Bubb  Dodington,"  the  sketch  of 
Lord  Beaconsfield,  he  takes  care  to  suppress 
every  external  circumstance  which  would  lead 
to  their  identification,  and  to  dwell  only  upon 
their  intellectual  or  psychic  aspects. 

A  second  reason  is  that  the  present  is  usually 
too  near  at  hand  to  be  used  altogether  effec- 
tively as  dramatic  material.  Contemporary 
conditions  of  history  seem  to  have  an  air  of 
stateliness  owing  to  the  fact  that  every  one 
is  familiar  with  them,  not  only  through  talk 
and  experience  but  through  newspapers  and 
magazines,  while  their  larger,  universal  mean- 
ings cannot  be  seen  at  too  close  a  range. 
If,  however,  past  historical  episodes  and  their 
tendencies  can  be  so  presented  as  to  illustrate 
the  tendencies  of  the  present,  then  the  needful 
artistic  perspective  is  gained.  In  this  manner, 
with  a  few  minor  exceptions,  Browning  has 
revealed  the  direction  in  which  his  political 
sympathies  lay. 

When  Browning  was  born,  the  first  Napo- 
leonic episode  was  nearing  its  close.  Abso- 


120   BROWNING  AND  HIS  CENTURY 

lutism  and  militarism  had  in  its  lust  for  power 
and  bloodshed  slaughtered  itself  for  the  time 
being,  and  once  more  there  was  opportunity 
for  the  people  of  England  to  strive  for  their 
own  enfranchisement. 

As  a  progressive  ministry  in  England  did 
not  come  into  power  until  1830,  the  struggles 
of  the  people  were  rewarded  with  little  suc- 
cess during  many  years  after  the  Battle  of 
Waterloo.  During  the  childhood  and  boy- 
hood of  Browning  the  events  which  from  time 
to  time  marked  the  determination  of  the 
downtrodden  Englishman  to  secure  a  larger 
measure  of  justice  for  himself  were  exciting 
enough  to  have  made  a  strong  impression 
upon  the  precocious  mind  of  the  incipient  poet 
even  in  the  seclusion  of  his  father's  library  at 
Camberwell. 

The  artificial  prosperity  which  had  buoyed 
up  the  workman  during  the  war  with  France 
suddenly  collapsed  with  the  advent  of  peace 
after  the  Battle  of  Waterloo.  Everything 
seemed  to  combine  to  make  the  affairs  of  the 
workingman  desperate.  Public  business  had 
been  blunderingly  administered,  and  while  a 
fatuous  Cabinet  was  congratulating  the  na- 
tion upon  the  flourishing  state  of  the  country, 
trade  was  actually  almost  at  a  standstill, 
and  failures  in  business  were  the  order  of  the 


CARDINAL  WISEMAN 


POLITICAL  TENDENCIES 

day.  To  make  matters  worse,  a  wet  summer 
and  early  frosts  interfered  with  farming,  and 
the  result  was  that  laborers  and  workmen 
could  not  find  employment.  A  not  unusual 
percentage  of  paupers  in  any  given  district 
was  four  fifths  of  the  whole  population. 
Thinking  the  farmers  were  to  blame  for  the 
high  price  of  bread,  these  starving  people 
wreaked  their  vengeance  on  them  by  burning 
farm  buildings,  and  machinery,  and  even 
stacks  of  corn  and  hay. 

Instead  of  giving  sympathy  to  these  men  in 
their  desperate  condition,  a  conservative  gov- 
ernment saw  in  them  only  rioters,  and  took  the 
most  stringent  measures  against  them.  They 
were  tried  by  a  special  commission,  and  thirty- 
four  of  them  were  condemned  to  death,  though 
it  is  recorded  that  only  five  of  them  were  exe- 
cuted. The  miners  of  Cornwall  and  Wales,  the 
lace  makers  of  Nottingham,  and  the  iron  work- 
ers of  the  Black  Country,  next  broke  out  and 
the  smashing  of  machinery  continued.  Finally 
there  was  a  meeting  of  the  artisans  of  London, 
Westminster,  and  Southwick  in  Spa  Fields, 
Clerkenwall,  which  had  been  called  by  Harry 
Hunt,  a  man  of  property  and  education,  who 
was  known  as  a  supporter  of  extreme  meas- 
ures, and  the  leader  of  the  Radicals  of  that 
day.  They  met  for  the  legitimate  purpose, 


122    BROWNING  AND  HIS  CENTURY 

one  would  think,  of  considering  the  propriety 
of  petitioning  the  Prince  Regent  and  Parlia- 
ment to  adopt  means  of  relieving  the  existing 
distress.  One  of  the  speakers,  however,  a  poor 
doctor  by  the  name  of  Watson,  was  of  a  more 
belligerent  disposition.  He  made  an  inflam- 
matory speech  which  ended  by  his  seizing  a 
tri-colored  flag  and  marching  toward  the  city 
followed  by  the  turbulent  rabble.  On  their 
way  they  seized  the  contents  of  a  gunsmith's 
shop  on  Snow  Hill,  murdered  a  man,  and 
finally  were  met  opposite  the  Mansion  House 
by  the  Lord  Mayor,  who,  assisted  by  a  strong 
body  of  police,  arrested  some  of  the  leaders 
and  dispersed  the  rest.  The  arrested  persons 
were  brought  to  trial  and  indicted  for  high 
treason  by  the  Attorney  General,  but  the 
jury,  evidently  thinking  the  indictment  had 
taken  too  exaggerated  a  form,  acquitted 
Watson,  and  the  others  were  dismissed. 

The  conservative  Parliament  was,  however, 
so  alarmed  by  these  proceedings  that,  instead 
of  seeking  some  way  of  removing  the  cause 
of  the  difficulties,  it  thought  only  of  making 
restrictions  for  the  protection  of  the  person  of 
the  Regent,  of  the  more  effective  prevention 
of  seditious  meetings  and  of  surer  punish- 
ment. And  what  were  some  of  these  meas- 
ures? Debating  societies,  lecture  halls  and 


POLITICAL  TENDENCIES          123 

reading  rooms  were  shut  up.  Even  lectures 
on  medicine,  surgery  and  chemistry  were 
prohibited.  Though  there  was  a  possibility 
of  getting  a  license  to  lecture  from  the  magis- 
trate, the  law  was  interpreted  in  the  narrowest 
spirit. 

Parliamentary  reform  began  to  be  spoken 
of  in  1819,  when  a  resolution  pledging  the 
House  of  Commons  to  the  consideration  of 
the  state  of  representation  was  rejected  by  a 
vote  of  one  hundred  and  fifty-three  to  fifty- 
eight.  This  decision  stirred  up  the  reform 
spirit,  and  large  meetings  in  favor  of  it  were 
held.  The  people  attending  these  meetings 
received  military  drilling  and  marched  to 
their  meetings  in  orderly  processions,  a  fact 
naturally  very  disturbing  to  the  government. 
When  a  great  meeting  was  arranged  at  Man- 
chester on  the  16th  of  August,  troops  were 
accordingly  sent  to  Manchester.  The  cavalry 
was  ordered  to  charge  the  crowd,  and  although 
they  used  the  flat  side  of  their  swords,  the 
charge  resulted  in  the  killing  of  six  persons 
and  the  wounding  of  some  hundreds.  The 
clash  did  not  end  here,  for  to  offset  the 
ministerial  approval  of  the  action  of  the 
magistrates  and  their  decision  that  the  meet- 
ing was  illegal,  the  Common  Council  of 
London  passed  a  resolution  by  a  large  major- 


124    BROWNING  AND  HIS  CENTURY 

ity  declaring  that  the  meeting  was  legal.  A 
number  of  Whig  noblemen  also  were  on  the 
side  of  the  London  Council  and  made  similar 
motions.  But  the  ministers,  unmoved  by 
these  signs  of  the  times,  introduced  bills  in 
Parliament  for  the  repression  of  disorder  and 
the  further  restraining  of  public  liberty.  The 
bills,  it  is  true,  were  strenuously  opposed  in 
both  houses,  but  the  eloquence  expended 
against  them  was  all  to  no  purpose,  the  bills 
were  passed,  and  reform  for  the  time  being 
was  nipped  in  the  bud. 

Although  after  this  laws  were  gradually 
introduced  by  the  ministers  which  tended 
very  much  to  the  betterment  of  conditions, 
the  fire  of  reform  did  not  burst  out  again  with 
full  fury  until  the  time  of  the  Revolution  of 
July,  in  France,  which  it  will  be  remembered 
was  directed  against  the  despotic  King  Charles 
X,  and  ended  in  his  being  deposed,  when  his 
crown  was  given  to  his  distant  cousin  Louis 
Philippe.  The  success  of  the  French  in  their 
stand  against  despotism  caused  a  general 
revolutionary  stir  in  several  European  coun- 
tries, while  in  England  the  spirit  of  revolution 
showed  itself  in  incendiary  fires  from  one  end 
of  the  country  to  the  other. 

With  Parliament  itself  full  of  believers  in 
reform,  the  chief  of  the  Cabinet,  the  Duke  of 


POLITICAL  TENDENCIES  125 

Wellington,  announced  that  the  House  of 
Commons  did  not  need  reform  and  that  he 
would  resist  all  proposals  for  a  change.  So 
great  was  the  popular  excitement  at  this 
announcement  that  the  Duke  could  not  ven- 
ture to  go  forth  to  dine  at  the  Guildhall  for 
fear  that  he  might  be  attacked. 

Such  were  the  chief  episodes  in  the  forward 
advance  of  the  people  up  to  the  tune  of  the 
presentation  of  the  Reform  Bill  in  Parliament. 
This  important  measure  has  been  described 
as  the  greatest  organic  change  in  the  British 
Constitution  that  had  taken  place  since  the 
revolution  of  1688.  When  this  bill  was  finally 
passed  it  meant  a  transference  of  govern- 
mental control  from  the  upper  classes  to  the 
middle  classes,  and  was  the  inauguration  of  a 
policy  which  has  constantly  added  to  the 
prosperity  and  well-being  of  the  English 
people.  The  agitation  upon  this  bill,  intro- 
duced in  the  House  by  Lord  John  Russell, 
under  the  Premiership  of  Earl  Grey,  and  a 
ministry  favorable  to  reform,  was  filling  the 
attention  of  all  Englishmen  to  the  exclusion 
of  every  other  subject  just  at  the  time  when 
Browning  was  emerging  into  manhood,  1831 
and  1832,  and  though  he  has  not  commemo- 
rated in  his  poetry  this  great  step  in  the 
political  progress  of  his  own  century,  his  first 


126   BROWNING  AND  HIS  CENTURY 

play,  written  in  1837,  takes  up  a  period  of 
English  history  in  which  a  momentous  strug- 
gle for  liberty  on  the  part  of  the  people  was 
in  progress. 

Important  as  the  Reform  Bill  was,  it  fur- 
nished no  such  picturesque  episodes  for  a 
dramatist  as  did  the  struggle  of  Pym  and 
Strafford  under  the  despotic  rule  of  King 
Charles  I. 

In  choosing  this  period  for  his  play  the 
poet  found  not  only  material  which  furnished 
to  his  hand  a  series  of  wonderfully  dramatic 
situations,  but  in  the  three  men  about  whom 
the  action  moves  is  presented  an  individuality 
and  a  contrast  in  character  full  of  those 
possibilities  for  analysis  so  attractive  to 
Browning's  mind. 

Another  point  to  be  gained  by  taking  this 
remote  period  of  history  was  that  his  attitude 
could  be  supremely  that  of  the  philosopher  of 
history.  He  could  portray  with  fairness  what- 
ever worth  of  character  he  found  to  admire 
in  the  leaders  upon  either  side,  at  the  same 
time  that  he  could  show  which  possessed 
the  winning  principle  —  the  principle  of  prog- 
ress. In  dealing  with  contemporary  events  a 
strong  personal  feeling  is  sure  to  gain  the 
upper  hand,  and  to  be  non-partisan  and 
therefore  truly  dramatic  is  a  difficult,  if  not  an 


POLITICAL  TENDENCIES          127 

impossible,  task.  When  we  come  to  examine 
this  play,  we  find  that  the  character  which 
unquestionably  interested  the  poet  most  was 
Straff ord's;  not  because  of  his  political  princi- 
ples but  because  of  his  devotion  to  his  King. 
Human  love  and  loyalty  in  whomever  mani- 
fested was  always  of  the  supremest  interest 
to  Browning,  and,  working  upon  any  hints 
furnished  by  history,  the  poet  has  developed 
the  character  of  Strafford  in  the  light  of  his 
personal  friendship  for  the  King  —  a  feeling 
so  powerful  that  no  fickle  change  of  mood  on 
the  part  of  the  King  could  alter  it.  Upon 
this  fact  of  his  personal  relations  to  the  King 
Strafford's  actions  in  this  great  crisis  have 
been  interpreted  and  explained,  though  not 
defended,  from  the  political  point  of  view. 

Some  wavering  on  the  part  of  Pym  is  also 
explained  upon  the  ground  of  his  friendship 
for  and  his  belief  in  Strafford,  but  mark  the 
difference  between  the  two  men.  Pym,  once 
sure  that  Strafford  is  not  on  the  side  of 
progress,  crushes  out  all  personal  feeling.  He 
allows  nothing  to  stand  in  the  way  of  his 
political  policy.  With  unflinching  purpose  he 
proceeds  against  his  former  friend,  straight 
on  to  the  impeachment  for  treason,  straight 
on,  like  an  inexorable  fate,  to  the  prevention 
of  his  rescue  from  execution.  Browning's 


128   BROWNING  AND  HIS  CENTURY 

dramatic  imagination  is  responsible  for  this 
last  climax  in  which  he  brings  the  two  men 
face  to  face.  Here,  in  Pym's  strength  of  will 
to  serve  England  at  any  cost,  mingled  with  the 
hope  of  meeting  Strafford  purged  of  all  his 
errors  in  a  future  life,  and  in  Strafford's 
response,  "When  we  meet,  Pym,  I'd  be  set 
right  —  not  now!  Best  die,"  is  foreshadowed 
the  ultimate  triumph  of  the  parliamentary 
over  the  monarchical  principles  of  govern- 
ment, and  the  poet's  own  sympathy  with  the 
party  of  progress  is  made  plain. 

It  is  interesting  in  the  present  connection 
to  inquire  whether  there  are  any  parallels 
between  the  agitation  connected  with  the 
reform  legislation  of  1832  and  the  revolution 
at  the  tune  of  Charles  I  which  might  send 
Browning's  mind  back  to  that  period.  The 
special  point  about  which  the  battle  raged  in 
1832  was  the  representation  in  Parliament. 
This  was  so  irregular  that  it  was  absolutely 
unfair.  In  many  instances  large  districts  or 
towns  would  have  fewer  representatives  than 
smaller  ones,  or  perhaps  none  at  all.  Repre- 
sentation was  more  a  matter  of  favoritism 
than  of  justice.  The  votes  in  Parliament  were, 
therefore,  not  at  all  a  true  measure  of  the 
attitude  of  the  country.  It  seems  strange 
that  so  eminently  sensible  a  reform  should 


POLITICAL  TENDENCIES          129 

meet  with  such  determined  opposition.  As 
usual,  those  in  power  feared  loss  of  privilege. 
The  House  of  Lords  was  the  obstruction. 
The  bill  was  in  fact  a  step  logically  following 
upon  the  determination  of  the  people  of  the 
time  of  Charles  I  that  they  would  not  sub- 
mit to  be  levied  upon  for  ship-money  upon 
the  sole  authority  of  the  King.  They 
demanded  that  Parliament,  which  had  not 
been  assembled  for  ten  years,  should  meet 
and  decide  the  question.  This  question  was 
not  merely  one  of  the  war-tax  or  ship-money, 
but  of  whether  the  King  should  have  the 
power  to  levy  taxes  upon  the  people  without 
consent  of  Parliament. 

As  every  one  knows,  when  the  King  finally 
consented  to  the  assembling  of  Parliament, 
in  April,  1840,  he  informed  it  that  there  would 
be  no  discussion  of  its  demands  until  it  had 
granted  the  war  subsidies  for  which  it  had 
been  asked.  The  older  Vane  added  to  the 
consternation  of  the  assembly  by  announcing 
that  the  King  would  accept  nothing  less  than 
the  twelve  subsidies  which  he  had  demanded 
in  his  message.  In  the  face  of  this  ultimatum 
the  committee  broke  up  without  coming  to 
a  conclusion,  postponing  further  considera- 
tion until  the  next  day,  but  before  they  had 
had  time  to  consider  the  matter  the  next  day 


130    BROWNING  AND  HIS  CENTURY 

the  King  had  decided  to  dissolve  the  Parlia- 
ment. 

The  King  was  forced,  however,  to  reassem- 
ble Parliament  again  in  the  autumn.  In  this 
Parliament  the  people's  party  gained  control, 
and  many  reforms  were  instituted.  Led  by 
such  daring  men  as  Pym,  Hampden,  Crom- 
well, and  the  younger  Vane,  resolutions  were 
passed  censuring  the  levying  of  ship-money, 
tonnage  and  poundage,  monopolies,  innova- 
tions in  religion  —  in  fact,  all  the  grievances 
of  the  oppressed  which  had  been  ignored  for 
a  decade  were  brought  to  light  and  redressed 
by  the  House,  quite  regardless  of  the  King's 
attitude. 

The  chief  of  the  abuses  which  it  was  bent 
upon  remedying  was  the  imposing  of  taxes 
upon  the  authority  of  the  King  and  the  per- 
secution of  the  Puritans.  But  there  was 
another  grievance  which  received  the  atten- 
tion of  the  Long  Parliament,  and  which  forms 
a  close  link  with  the  reforms  of  1832  —  namely, 
the  attempt  to  improve  the  system  of  repre- 
sentation in  Parliament,  an  attempt  which 
was  partially  carried  into  effect  by  Cromwell 
later.  Under  Charles  II,  however,  things 
fell  back  into  their  old  way  and  gradually 
went  on  from  bad  to  worse  until  the  tide 
changed,  and  the  people  became  finally 


POLITICAL  TENDENCIES          131 

aroused  after  two  hundred  years  to  the  need 
of  a  radical  change.  The  blindness  of  the 
Duke  of  Wellington,  declaring  no  reform  was 
needed,  is  hardly  less  to  be  marveled  at  than 
that  of  King  Charles  declaring  he  would 
rule  without  Parliament.  The  King  took  the 
ground  that  the  people  had  no  right  to  repre- 
sentation in  the  government;  the  Minister,  that 
only  some  of  the  people  had  a  right. 

The  horrors  of  revolution  followed  upon  the 
blindness  of  the  one,  with  its  reactionary 
aftermath,  while  upon  the  other  there  was 
violence,  it  is  true,  and  a  revolution  was 
feared,  but  through  the  wise  measures  of  the 
liberal  ministers  no  subversion  of  the  govern- 
ment occurred.  Violence  reached  such  a 
pitch,  however,  that  the  castle  of  Nottingham 
in  Derby  was  burned,  the  King's  brother  was 
dragged  from  his  horse,  and  Lord  Londonderry 
roughly  treated.  The  mob  at  Bristol  was  so 
infuriated  that  Sir  C.  Wetherell,  the  Recorder 
of  the  city,  who  had  voted  against  the  bill, 
had  to  be  escorted  to  the  Guildhall  by  a 
hundred  mounted  gentlemen.  Two  men  hav- 
ing been  arrested,  the  mob  attacked  and  de- 
stroyed the  interior  of  the  Mansion  House, 
set  fire  to  the  Bishop's  palace  and  to  many 
other  buildings.  There  was  not  only  an  enor- 
mous loss  of  property,  but  loss  of  life. 


132   BROWNING  AND  HIS  CENTURY 

A  quieter  demonstration  at  Birmingham 
carries  us  back,  as  it  might  have  carried 
Browning,  to  the  "great-hearted  men"  of  the 
Long  Parliament.  A  meeting  was  called 
which  was  attended  by  one  hundred  and 
fifty  thousand  persons,  and  resolutions  were 
passed  to  the  effect  that  if  the  Reform  Bill 
were  not  passed  they  would  refuse  to  pay 
taxes,  as  Hampden  had  refused  to  pay  ship- 
money. 

The  final  act  in  this  momentous  drama  was 
initiated  with  the  introduction  by  Lord  John 
Russell  of  the  third  Reform  Bill  in  December, 
1831.  Again  it  was  defeated  in  the  House  of 
Lords,  whereupon  some  of  the  Cabinet  wished 
to  ask  the  King  to  create  a  sufficient  number 
of  new  peers  to  force  the  bill  through  the 
House.  Earl  Grey  was  not  at  all  in  favor  of 
this,  but  at  last  consented.  This  course  was 
not  welcome  to  the  House  of  Lords,  and  the 
doubtful  members  in  the  House  promised  that 
if  this  suggestion  were  not  carried  into  effect 
they  would  insure  a  sufficient  majority  in  the 
House  of  Lords  to  carry  the  bill.  This  was 
done,  but  before  the  Lords  went  into  com- 
mittee a  hostile  motion  postponing  the  dis- 
franchisement  clauses  was  carried.  Then  Earl 
Grey  asked  for  the  creation  of  new  peers. 
As  it  would  require  the  creating  of  about 


133 

fifty  new  peers,  the  King  refused,  the  ministry 
resigned  and  the  Duke  of  Wellington  came 
into  power  again.  But  his  power,  like  that 
of  Strafford,  was  broken.  He  had  reached  the 
point  of  recognizing  that  some  reform  was 
needed,  but  he  could  not  persuade  his  col- 
leagues of  this.  In  the  meantime  the  House 
of  Commons  passed  a  resolution  of  confidence 
in  the  Grey  administration.  Such  determined 
opposition  being  shown  not  only  in  Parlia- 
ment but  by  the  people  in  various  ways, 
Wellington  felt  his  only  course  was  resignation. 
William  IV  had,  much  to  his  chagrin,  to  recall 
Grey,  but  he  escaped  the  necessity  of  creating 
a  large  number  of  peers,  by  asking  the  oppo- 
sition in  the  House  of  Lords  to  withdraw 
their  resistance  to  the  bill.  The  Duke  of 
Wellington  and  others  thereupon  absented 
themselves,  and  finding  further  obstruction 
was  useless,  the  Lords  at  last  passed  the  bill 
and  it  became  law  in  June,  1832. 

This  national  crisis  through  which  Brown- 
ing had  lived  could  not  fail  to  have  made  its 
impression  on  him.  It  is  certainly  an  indica- 
tion of  the  depth  of  his  interest  in  the  growth 
of  liberalism  that  his  first  English  subject, 
written  only  a  few  years  subsequent  to  this 
momentous  change  in  governmental  methods, 
should  have  dealt  with  a  period  whose  analy- 


134   BROWNING  AND  HIS  CENTURY 

sis  and  interpretation  in  dramatic  form  gave 
him  every  opportunity  for  the  expression  of 
his  sympathy  with  liberal  ideals.  Broad- 
minded  in  his  interpretation  of  Strafford's 
career,  in  love  with  his  qualities  of  loyalty, 
and  his  capabilities  of  genuine  affection  for 
the  vacillating  Charles,  he  made  Strafford 
the  hero  of  his  play,  but  it  is  Pym  whom, 
in  his  play,  he  has  exalted  as  the  nation's 
hero,  and  into  whose  mouth  he  has  put  one 
of  the  greatest  and  most  intensely  pa- 
thetic speeches  ever  uttered  by  an  English- 
man. It  is  when  he  confronts  Strafford  at 
the  last: 

"Have  I  done  well?    Speak,  England !    Whose  sole  sake 
I  still  have  labored  for,  with  disregard 
To  my  own  heart,  —  for  whom  my  youth  was  made 
Barren,  my  manhood  waste,  to  offer  up 
Her  sacrifice  —  this  friend  —  this  Wentworth  here  — 
Who  walked  in  youth  with  me,  loved  me,  it  may  be, 
And  whom,  for  his  forsaking  England's  cause, 
I  hunted  by  all  means  (trusting  that  she 
Would  sanctify  all  means)  even  to  the  block 
Which  waits  for  him.     And  saying  this,  I  feel 
No  bitterer  pang  than  first  I  felt,  the  hour 
I  swore  that  Wentworth  might  leave  us,  but  I 
Would  never  leave  him:  I  do  leave  him  now. 
I  render  up  my  charge  (be  witness,  God !) 
To  England  who  imposed  it.    I  have  done 
Her  bidding  —  poorly,  wrongly,  —  it  may  be, 
With  ill  effects  —  for  I  am  weak,  a  man: 


POLITICAL  TENDENCIES  135 

Still,  I  have  done  my  best,  my  human  best, 

Not  faltering  for  a  moment.     It  is  done. 

And  this  said,  if  I  say     .     .     .     yes,  I  will  say 

I  never  loved  but  one  man  —  David  not 

More  Jonathan!    Even  thus  I  love  him  now: 

And  look  for  that  chief  portion  in  that  world 

Where  great  hearts  led  astray  are  turned  again, 

(Soon  it  may  be,  and,  certes,  will  be  soon: 

My  mission  over,  I  shall  not  live  long)  — 

Ay,  here  I  know  and  talk  —  I  dare  and  must, 

Of  England,  and  her  great  reward,  as  all 

I  look  for  there;  but  in  my  inmost  heart, 

Believe,  I  think  of  stealing  quite  away 

To  walk  once  more  with  Wentworth  —  my  youth's  friend 

Purged  from  all  error,  gloriously  renewed, 

And  Eliot  shall  not  blame  us.    Then  indeed     .     .     . 

This  is  no  meeting,  Wentworth!     Tears  increase 

Too  hot.     A  thin  mist  —  is  it  blood?  —  enwraps 

The  face  I  loved  once.    Then,  the  meeting  be." 

At  the  same  time  that  Browning  was  writing 
"  Straff ord,"  he  was  also  engaged  upon  "Sor- 
dello."  In  that  he  has  given  expression  to 
his  democratic  philosophy  through  his  con- 
struction and  interpretation  of  Bordello's 
character  as  a  champion  of  the  people  as  well 
as  a  poet  who  ushered  in  the  dawn  of  the 
Italian  literary  Renaissance.  As  he  made 
Paracelsus  develop  from  a  dependence  upon 
knowledge  as  his  sole  guide  in  his  philosophy 
of  life  into  a  perception  of  the  place  emotion 
must  hold  in  any  satisfactory  theory  of  life, 


136   BROWNING  AND  HIS  CENTURY 

and  put  into  his  mouth  a  modern  conception 
of  evolution  illuminated  by  his  own  artistic 
emotion,  so  he  makes  Sordello  develop  from 
the  individualistic  type  to  the  socialist  type 
of  man,  who  is  bent  upon  raising  the  masses 
of  the  people  to  higher  conditions.  The  ideal 
of  liberal  forms  of  government  was  even  in 
Sordello's  time  a  growing  one,  sifting  into 
Italy  from  Greek  precedents,  but  Browning's 
Sordello  sees  something  beyond  either  polit- 
ical or  ecclesiastical  espousal  of  the  people's 
cause  —  namely,  the  espousal  of  the  people's 
cause  by  the  people  themselves,  the  arrival  of 
the  self-governing  democracy,  an  ideal  much 
nearer  attainment  now  than  when  Browning 
was  writing: 

"Two  parties  take  the  world  up,  and  allow 
No  third,  yet  have  one  principle,  subsist 
By  the  same  injustice;  whoso  shall  enlist 
With  either,  ranks  with  man's  inveterate  foes. 
So  there  is  one  less  quarrel  to  compose 
The  Guelf,  the  Ghibelline  may  be  to  curse  — 
I  have  done  nothing,  but  both  sides  do  worse 
Than  nothing.    Nay,  to  me,  forgotten,  reft 
Of  insight,  lapped  by  trees  and  flowers,  was  left 
The  notion  of  a  service  —  ha?     What  lured 
Me  here,  what  mighty  aim  was  I  assured 
Must  move  Taurello?    What  if  there  remained 
A  cause,  intact,  distinct  from  these,  ordained 
For  me  its  true  discoverer?" 


POLITICAL  TENDENCIES          137 

The  mood  here  portrayed  was  one  which 
might  have  been  fostered  in  Browning  in 
relation  to  his  own  time.  He  doubtless  felt 
that  neither  the  progressive  movements  in 
the  state  nor  those  in  religion  really  touched 
upon  the  true  principles  of  freedom  for  the 
individual.  He  might  not  have  defined  these 
principles  to  himself  any  more  definitely  than 
as  a  desire  for  the  greatest  happiness  of  the 
whole  number.  And  even  of  such  an  ideal  as 
that  he  had  his  doubts  because  of  the  necessity 
of  his  mind  to  find  a  logical  use  for  evil  in  the 
world.  This  he  could  only  do  by  supposing 
it  a  divine  means  for  the  development  of  the 
human  soul  in  its  sojourn  in  this  life.  Speak- 
ing in  his  own  person  in  "Bordello,"  he  gives 
expression  to  this  doubt  in  the  following 
passage  in  the  third  book: 

"I  ask  youth  and  strength 

And  health  for  each  of  you,  not  more  —  at  length 
Grown  wise,  who  asked  at  home  that  the  whole  race 
Might  add  the  spirit's  to  the  body's  grace, 
And  all  be  dizened  out  as  chiefs  and  bards. 


" As  good  you  sought 

To  spare  me  the  Piaz/a's  slippery  stone 
Or  keep  me  to  the  unchoked  canals  alone, 
As  hinder  Life  the  evil  with  the  good 
Which  make  up  Living  rightly  understood, " 


138   BROWNING  AND  HIS  CENTURY 

Still,  though  vague  as  to  what  the  good 
for  the  whole  people  might  be,  there  was  no 
vagueness  in  his  mind  as  to  the  people's  right 
to  possess  the  power  to  bring  about  their 
own  happiness.  Yet  given  the  right  princi- 
ples, he  would  not  have  the  attempt  made  to 
put  them  into  practice  all  at  once. 

His  final  attitude  toward  the  problem  of 
the  best  methods  for  bettering  human  con- 
ditions in  the  poem  is,  strictly  speaking,  that 
of  the  opportunist  working  a  step  toward  his 
ideal  rather  than  that  of  the  revolutionist 
who  would  gain  it  by  one  leap.  Sordello 
should  realize  that 

God  has  conceded  two  lights  to  a  man  — 
One,  of  men's  whole  work,  man's  first 
Step  to  the  plan's  completeness." 

Man's  part  is  to  take  this  first  step,  leaving 
the  ultimate  ideal  to  be  worked  out,  as  time 
goes,  on  by  successive  men.  To  reach  at  one 
bound  the  ideal  would  be  to  regard  one's  self 
as  a  god.  Some  such  theory  of  action  as 
this  is  the  one  which  guides  the  Fabian 
socialist  working  in  England  to-day.  Nothing 
is  to  be  done  to  subvert  the  present  order  of 
society,  but  every  opportunity  is  to  be  made 
the  most  of  which  will  tend  to  the  betterment 
of  the  conditions  of  the  masses,  until  by 


POLITICAL  TENDENCIES          139 

degrees  the  socialist  regime  will  become  pos- 
sible. Sordello  was  too  much  of  the  idealist 
to  seize  the  opportunity  when  it  came  to  him 
of  helping  the  people  by  means  of  the  Ghibel- 
line  power  suddenly  conferred  upon  him,  and 
so  he  failed. 

This  opportunist  doctrine  is  one  especially 
congenial  to  the  English  temperament  and 
certainly  has  its  practical  advantages,  if  it 
is  not  so  inspiring  as  the  headlong  idealism 
of  a  Pym,  which  just  as  surely  has  its  disad- 
vantages hi  the  danger  that  the  ideal  will  be 
ahead  of  humanity's  power  of  seizing  it  and 
living  it,  and  will  therefore  run  the  risk  of 
being  overturned  by  a  reaction  to  the  low 
plane  of  the  past;  especially  does  this  danger 
become  apparent  when  the  way  to  the  attain- 
ment of  the  ideal  is  paved  with  violence. 

While  Browning  was  writing  "Sordello," 
the  preparation  of  which  included  a  short 
trip  to  Italy,  the  Chartist  agitation  was  going 
on  in  England.  It  may  well,  at  that  time, 
have  been  considered  to  demand  an  ideal 
beyond  possibility  of  attainment,  which  was 
proved  by  its  final  utter  annihilation.  The 
workingmen's  association  led  by  Mr.  Dun- 
combe  was  responsible  for  a  program  in  the 
form  of  a  parliamentary  petition  which  asked 
for  six  things.  These  were:  universal  suffrage, 


140   BROWNING  AND  HIS  CENTURY 

or  the  right  of  voting  by  every  male  of  twenty- 
one  years  of  age;  vote  by  ballot;  annual 
Parliaments;  abolition  of  the  property  quali- 
fication for  members  of  Parliament;  members 
of  Parliament  to  be  paid  for  their  services; 
equal  electoral  districts. 

There  were  two  sorts  of  Chartists,  moral- 
force  Chartists  and  physical-force  Chartists, 
the  latter  of  whom  did  as  much  damage  as 
possible  in  the  agitation. 

The  combined  forces  were  led  by  Feargus 
O'Connor,  an  Irish  barrister,  who  madly 
spent  his  force  and  energy  for  ten  years  in 
carrying  forward  the  movement,  and,  at  last, 
confronted  by  disagreement  in  the  ranks  of 
the  Chartists  and  the  Duke  of  Wellington  and 
his  troops,  gave  it  up  in  despair.  He  was  a 
martyr  to  the  cause,  for  he  took  its  failure  so 
much  to  heart  that  he  ended  his  days  in  a 
lunatic  asylum. 

This  final  failure  came  many  years  after 
"Sordello"  was  finished,  but  the  poet's  con- 
clusions in  "Sordello"  seem  almost  prophetic 
in  the  light  of  the  passage  in  the  poem  already 
quoted,  in  which  the  poet  declares  himself 
grown  wiser  than  he  was  at  home,  where  he 
had  asked  the  utmost  for  all  men,  and  now 
realized  that  this  cannot  be  attained  in  one 
leap. 


POLITICAL  TENDENCIES          141 

Agitation  about  the  relations  between  Eng- 
land and  Ireland  were  also  filling  public 
attention  at  this  time,  but  most  important 
of  all  the  contemporary  movements  was  the 
League  for  the  Repeal  of  the  Corn  Laws. 
The  story  of  the  growth  and  the  peaceful 
methods  by  which  it  attained  its  growth  is  one 
of  the  most  interesting  in  the  annals  of 
England's  political  development.  It  meant 
the  adoption  of  the  great  principle  of  free 
trade,  to  which  England  has  since  adhered. 
For  eight  years  the  agitation  in  regard  to  it 
was  continued,  during  which  great  meetings 
were  held,  thousands  of  pounds  were  sub- 
scribed to  the  cause,  and  the  names  of  Sir 
Richard  Cobden  and  John  Bright  became 
famous  as  leaders  in  the  righteous  cause  of 
untaxed  food  for  the  people.  John  Bright's 
account  of  how  he  became  interested  in  the 
movement  and  associated  himself  with  Cob- 
den  in  the  work,  told  in  a  speech  made  at 
Rochdale,  gives  a  vivid  picture  of  the  human 
side  of  the  problem  which  by  the  conserva- 
tives of  the  day  was  treated  as  a  merely 
political  issue: 

"In  the  year  1841  I  was  at  Leamington  and  spent  several 
months  there.  It  was  near  the  middle  of  September  there 
fell  upon  me  one  of  the  heaviest  blows  that  can  visit  any 
man.  I  found  myself  living  there  with  none  living  of  my 


142   BROWNING  AND  HIS  CENTURY 

house  but  a  motherless  child.  Mr.  Cobden  called  upon  me 
the  day  after  that  event,  so  terrible  to  me  and  so  prostrating. 
He  said,  after  some  conversation,  'Don't  allow  this  grief, 
great  as  it  is,  to  weigh  you  down  too  much.  There  are  at 
this  moment  in  thousands  of  homes  in  this  country  wives  and 
children  who  are  dying  of  hunger  —  of  hunger  made  by  the 
law.  If  you  come  along  with  me,  we  will  never  rest  till  we 
have  got  rid  of  the  Corn  Law.'  We  saw  the  colossal  injustice 
which  cast  its  shadow  over  every  part  of  the  nation,  and  we 
thought  we  saw  the  true  remedy  and  the  relief,  and  that  if 
we  united  our  efforts,  as  you  know  we  did,  with  the  efforts  of 
hundreds  and  thousands  of  good  men  in  various  parts  of  the 
country,  we  should  be  able  to  bring  that  remedy  home,  and 
to  afford  that  relief  to  the  starving  people  of  this  country. " 

The  movement  thrjs  inaugurated  was,  as 
Molesworth  declares,  "without  parallel  in  the 
history  of  the  world  for  the  energy  with  which 
it  was  conducted,  the  rapid  advance  it  made, 
and  the  speedy  and  complete  success  that 
crowned  its  efforts;  for  the  great  change  it 
wrought  in  public  opinion  and  the  consequent 
legislation  of  the  country;  overcoming  preju- 
dice and  passion,  dispelling  ignorance  and 
conquering  powerful  interests,  with  no  other 
weapons  than  those  of  reason  and  that  elo- 
quence which  great  truths  and  strong  con- 
viction inspire." 

A  signal  victory  for  the  League  was  gained 
in  1843,  when  the  London  Times,  which  up 
to  that  time  had  regarded  the  League  with 


POLITICAL  TENDENCIES          143 

suspicion  and  even  alarm,  suddenly  turned 
round  and  ranged  itself  with  the  advancing 
tide  of  progress  by  declaring,  "The  League 
is  a  great  fact.  It  would  be  foolish,  nay, 
rash,  to  deny  its  importance.  It  is  a  great 
fact  that  there  should  have  been  created  in 
the  homestead  of  our  manufacturers  (Man- 
chester) a  confederacy  devoted  to  the  agitation 
of  one  political  question,  persevering  at  it 
year  after  year,  shrinking  from  no  trouble, 
dismayed  at  no  danger,  making  light  of  every 
obstacle.  It  demonstrates  the  hardy  strength 
of  purpose,  the  indomitable  will,  by  which 
Englishmen  working  together  for  a  great 
object  are  armed  and  animated." 

The  final  victory,  however,  did  not  come 
until  three  years  later,  when  Sir  Robert  Peel, 
who  became  Prime  Minister  to  defend  the 
Corn  Laws,  announced  that  he  had  been 
completely  convinced  of  their  injustice,  and 
that  he  was  an  "absolute  convert  to  the 
free-trade  principle,  and  that  the  introduc- 
tion of  the  principle  into  all  departments  of 
our  commercial  legislation  was,  according  to 
his  intention,  to  be  a  mere  question  of  time 
and  convenience."  This  was  in  January, 
1845,  and  shortly  after,  June,  1846,  the  bill 
for  the  total  repeal  of  the  Corn  Laws  passed 
the  House, 


144   BROWNING  AND  HIS  CENTURY 

How  much  longer  it  might  have  been  before 
the  opposition  was  carried  is  a  question  if  it  had 
not  been  for  the  failure  of  the  grain  crops  and 
the  widespread  potato  disease  which  plunged 
Ireland  into  a  state  of  famine,  and  threatened 
the  whole  country  with  more  or  less  of  disaster. 

Even  when  this  state  of  affairs  became 
apparent  in  the  summer  of  1845  there  was 
still  much  delay.  The  Cabinet  met  and 
discussed  and  discussed;  still  Parliament  was 
not  assembled;  and  then  it  was  that  the 
Mansion  House  Relief  Committee  of  Dublin 
drew  up  resolutions  stating  that  famine  and 
pestilence  were  approaching  throughout  the 
land,  and  impeaching  the  conduct  of  the 
Ministry  for  not  opening  the  ports  or  calling 
Parliament  together. 

But  still  Peel,  already  won  over,  could  not 
take  his  Cabinet  with  him;  he  was  forced  to 
resign.  Lord  John  Russell  was  called  to  form 
a  ministry,  but  failed,  when  Peel  was  recalled, 
and  the  day  was  carried. 

Browning's  brief  but  pertinent  allusion  to 
this  struggle  in  "The  Englishman  hi  Italy" 
shows  clearly  how  strongly  his  sympathies 
were  with  the  League  and  how  disgusted  he 
was  with  the  procrastination  of  Parliament 
in  taking  a  perfectly  obvious  step  for  the 
betterment  of  the  people. 


POLITICAL  TENDENCIES          145 

"Fortnu,  in  my  England  at  home, 
Men  meet  gravely  to-day 
And  debate,  if  abolishing  Corn  laws 
Be  righteous  and  wise 
If  't  were  proper,  Scirocco  should  vanish 
In  black  from  the  skies!" 

An  occasional  allusion  or  poem  like  this 
makes  us  aware  from  time  to  time  of  Brown- 
ing's constant  sympathy  with  any  movement 
which  meant  good  to  the  masses.  Even  if 
he  had  not  written  near  the  end  of  his  life 
"Why  I  am  a  Liberal,"  there  could  be  no 
doubt  in  any  one's  mind  of  his  political  ideals. 
In  "The  Lost  Leader"  is  perhaps  his  strongest 
utterance  upon  the  subject.  The  fact  that 
it  was  called  out  by  Wordsworth's  lapse  into 
conservatism  after  the  horrors  of  the  French 
Revolution  had  brought  him  and  his  sans 
culotte  brethren,  Southey  and  Coleridge,  to 
pause,  a  fact  very  possibly  freshened  in 
Browning's  mind  by  Wordsworth's  receiving 
a  pension  in  1842  and  the  poet-laureateship 
in  1843,  does  not  affect  the  force  of  the 
poem  as  a  personal  utterance  on  the  side  of 
democracy.  Browning,  himself,  considered 
the  poem  far  too  fierce  as  a  portrayal  of 
Wordsworth's  case.*  He  evidently  forgot 
Wordsworth,  and  thought  only  of  a  renegade 

*See  the  author's  "Browning's  England." 


146   BROWNING  AND  HIS  CENTURY 

liberal  as  he  went  on  with  the  poem.  It  was 
written  the  same  year  that  there  occurred  the 
last  attempt  to  postpone  the  passing  of  the 
Anti-Corn  Law  Bill,  whe*n  the  intensity  of 
feeling  on  the  part  of  all  who  believed  in  prog- 
ress was  at  its  height,  and  the  bare  thought 
of  a  deserter  from  Liberal  ranks  would  be 
enough  to  exasperate  any  man  who  had  the 
nation's  welfare  at  heart.  That  Browning's 
feeling  at  the  time  reached  the  point  not  only 
of  exasperation  but  of  utmost  scorn  for  any 
one  who  was  not  on  the  liberal  side  is  shown 
most  forcibly  in  the  bitter  lines: 

"Blot  out  his  name,  then,  record  one  lost  soul  more, 
One  task  more  declined,  one  more  footpath  untrod , 

One  more  devil's  triumph  and  sorrow  for  angels, 

One  more  wrong  to  man,  one  more  insult  to  God ! " 

Browning  speaks  of  having  thought  of 
Wordsworth  at  an  unlucky  juncture. 

Whatever  the  exact  episode  which  called 
forth  the  poem  may  have  been,  we  are  safe  in 
saying  that  at  a  time  when  Disraeli  was 
attacking  Sir  Robert  Peel  because  of  his 
honesty  in  avowing  his  conversion  to  free 
trade,  and  because  of  his  bravery  in  coming 
out  from  his  party,  in  breaking  up  his  cabinet 
and  regardless  of  all  costs  in  determining  to 
carry  the  bill  or  resign,  and  finally  carrying 


POLITICAL  TENDENCIES          147 

it  in  the  face  of  the  greatest  odds  —  at  such 
a  time,  when  a  great  conservative  leader  had 
shown  himself  capable  of  being  won  over  to 
a  great  liberal  principle;  the  spectacle  of  a 
deserter  from  the  cause,  and  that  deserter  a 
member  of  one's  own  brotherhood  of  poets, 
would  be  especially  hard  to  bear. 

One  feels  a  little  like  asking  why  did  not 
Browning  let  his  enthusiasm  carry  him  for 
once  into  a  contemporary  expression  of  admi- 
ration for  Sir  Robert  Peel?  Perhaps  the 
tortuous  windings  of  parliamentary  proceed- 
ings obscured  to  a  near  view  the  true  greatness 
of  Peel's  action. 

The  year  of  this  great  change  in  England's 
policy  was  the  year  of  Robert  Browning's 
marriage  and  his  departure  for  Italy,  where 
he  lived  for  fifteen  years.  During  this  tune 
and  for  some  years  after  his  return  to  England 
there  is  no  sign  that  he  was  taking  any  interest 
in  the  political  affairs  of  his  country.  Human 
character  under  romantic  conditions  in  a 
social  environment,  or  the  thought  problems 
of  the  age,  as  we  have  already  seen,  occupied 
his  attention,  and  for  the  subject  matter  of 
these  he  more  often  than  not  went  far  afield 
from  his  native  country. 

In  "Prince  Hohenstiel-Schwangau "  is  the 
poet's  first  deliberate  portrayal  of  a  person 


148   BROWNING  AND  HIS  CENTURY 

of  contemporary  prominence  in  the  political 
world.  The  alliance  of  Napoleon  III  with 
England  brought  his  policy  of  government 
into  strong  contrast  with  that  of  the  liberal 
leaders  in  English  politics,  a  contrast  which 
had  been  emphasized  through  Lord  Palmer- 
ston's  sympathy  with  the  coup  d'etat. 

The  news  of  the  manner  in  which  Louis 
Napoleon  had  carried  out  his  policy  of  smash- 
ing the  French  constitution  caused  horror 
and  consternation  in  England,  and  the  Queen 
at  once  gave  instructions  that  nothing  should 
be  done  by  her  ambassador  hi  Paris  which 
could  be  in  any  way  construed  as  an  inter- 
ference in  the  internal  affairs  of  France. 
Already,  however,  Lord  Palmerston  had  ex- 
pressed to  the  French  Minister  of  Foreign 
Affairs  his  entire  approbation  in  the  act  of 
Napoleon  and  his  conviction  that  he  could 
not  have  acted  otherwise  than  as  he  had  done. 
When  this  was  known,  the  Prime  Minister, 
Lord  John  Russell,  wrote  Palmerston  a  letter, 
causing  his  resignation,  which  was  accepted 
very  willingly  by  the  Queen.  The  letter  was 
as  follows: 

"While  I  concur  in  the  foreign  policy  of  which  you  have 
been  the  adviser,  and  much  as  I  admire  the  energy  and  ability 
with  which  it  has  been  carried  into  effect,  I  cannot  but  ob- 
serve that  misunderstandings  perpetually  renewed,  violations 


POLITICAL  TENDENCIES          149 

of  prudence  and  decorum  too  frequently  repeated,  have 
marred  the  effects  which  ought  to  have  followed  from  a  sound 
policy  and  able  admirers.  I  am,  therefore,  most  reluctantly 
compelled  to  come  to  the  conclusion  that  the  conduct  of 
foreign  affairs  can  no  longer  be  left  in  your  hands  with 
advantage  to  the  country." 

When  England's  fears  that  Louis  Napoleon 
would  emulate  his  illustrious  predecessor  and 
invade  her  shores  were  allayed,  her  attitude 
was  modified.  She  forgot  the  horrors  of  the 
coup  d'etat  and  formed  an  alliance  with  him, 
and  her  hospitable  island  became  his  refuge 
in  his  downfall. 

A  prominent  figure  in  European  politics 
for  many  years,  Louis  Napoleon  had  just 
that  combination  of  greatness  and  mediocrity 
which  would  appeal  to  Browning's  love  of  a 
human  problem.  Furthermore,  Napoleon  was 
brought  very  directly  to  the  poet's  notice 
through  his  Italian  campaign  and  Mrs.  Brown- 
ing's interest  in  the  political  crisis  in  Italy, 
which  found  expression  in  her  fine  group  of 
Italian  patriotic  poems. 

The  question  has  been  asked,  "Will  the 
unbiased  judgment  of  posterity  allow  to 
Louis  Napoleon  some  extenuating  circum- 
stances, or  will  it  pronounce  an  unqualified 
condemnation  upon  the  man  who,  for  the 
sake  of  consolidating  his  own  power  and 


150   BROWNING  AND  HIS  CENTURY 

strengthening  his  corrupt  government,  spilled 
the  blood  of  no  less  than  a  hundred  thousand 
Frenchmen?" 

When  all  Europe  was  putting  to  itself 
some  such  question  as  this,  and  answering 
it  with  varying  degrees  of  leniency,  Browning 
conceived  the  idea  of  making  Napoleon  speak 
for  himself,  and  at  the  same  time  he  added 
what  purports  to  be  the  sort  of  criticism  of 
him  indulged  in  by  a  Thiers  or  a  Victor  Hugo. 
The  interest  of  the  poem  centers  in  Napoleon's 
own  vindication  of  himself  as  portrayed  by 
Browning.  What  Browning  wrote  of  the 
poem  in  a  letter  to  a  friend  in  1872  explains 
fully  his  aim,  as  well  as  showing  by  indirec- 
tion, at  least,  how  much  he  was  interested  in 
political  affairs  at  this  time,  though  so  little 
of  this  interest  crops  out  in  his  poetry:  "I 
think  in  the  main  he  meant  to  do  what  I 
say,  and  but  for  weakness  —  grown  more  ap- 
parent in  his  last  years  than  formerly  — 
would  have  done  what  I  say  he  did  not. 
I  thought  badly  of  him  at  the  beginning  of 
his  career,  et  pour  cause;  better  afterward,  on 
the  strength  of  the  promises  he  made  and 
gave  indications  of  intending  to  redeem.  I 
think  him  very  weak  in  the  last  miserable 
year.  At  his  worst  I  prefer  him  to  Thiers 's 
best."  At  another  time  he  wrote:  "I  am 


POLITICAL  TENDENCIES          151 

glad  you  like  what  the  editor  of  the  Edinburgh 
calls  my  eulogium  on  the  Second  Empire, 
which  it  is  not,  any  more  than  what  another 
wiseacre  affirms  it  to  be,  'a  scandalous  attack 
on  the  old  constant  friend  of  England.'  It  is 
just  what  I  imagine  the  man  might,  if  he 
pleased,  say  for  himself." 

Browning  depicts  the  man  as  perfectly 
conscious  of  his  own  limitations.  He  recog- 
nizes that  he  is  not  the  genius,  nor  the  creator 
of  a  new  order  of  things,  but  that  his  power 
lies  in  his  faculty  of  taking  an  old  ideal  and 
improving  upon  it.  He  contends  that  in 
following  out  his  special  gifts  as  a  conservator 
he  is  doing  just  what  God  intended  him  to 
do,  and  as  to  his  method  of  doing  it  that  is 
his  own  affair.  God  gives  him  the  commission 
and  leaves  it  to  his  human  faculties  to  carry 
it  out,  not  inquiring  what  these  are,  but 
simply  asking  at  the  end  if  the  commission 
has  been  accomplished. 

Once  admit  these  two  things  —  namely, 
that  his  nature,  though  not  of  the  highest,  is 
such  as  God  gave  him,  and  his  lack  of  respon- 
sibility in  regard  to  any  moral  ideal,  so  that 
he  accomplishes  the  purpose  of  this  nature  — 
and  a  loophole  is  given  for  any  inconsistencies 
he  may  choose  to  indulge  in  in  bringing 
about  that  strengthening  of  an  old  ideal  in 


152   BROWNING  AND  HIS  CENTURY 

which  he  believes.  The  old  ideal  is,  of  course, 
the  monarchical  principle  of  government,  ad- 
ministered, however,  in  such  a  manner  that 
it  will  be  for  the  good  of  society  in  all  its 
complex  manifestations  of  to-day.  His  notion 
of  society's  good  consists  in  a  balancing  of 
all  its  forces,  secured  by  the  smoothing  down  of 
any  extreme  tendencies,  each  having  its  orbit 
marked  but  no  more,  so  that  none  shall  im- 
pede the  other's  path. 

"In  this  wide  world  —  though  each  and  all  alike, 
Save  for  [him]  fain  would  spread  itself  through  space 
And  leave  its  fellow  not  an  inch  of  way. " 

Browning  makes  him  indulge  in  a  curiously 
sophisticated  view  of  the  relativity  of  good 
and  evil  in  the  course  of  his  argument,  to  the 
effect  that  since  there  is  a  further  good  con- 
ceivable beyond  the  utmost  earth  can  realize, 
therefore  to  change  the  agency  —  the  evil 
whereby  good  is  brought  about,  try  to  make 
good  do  good  as  evil  does —  would  be  just  as 
foolish  as  if  a  chemist  wanting  white  and 
knowing  that  black  ingredients  were  needed 
to  make  the  dye  insisted  these  should  be  white, 
too.  A  bad  world  is  that  which  he  experi- 
ences and  approves.  A  good  world  he  does 
not  want  in  which  there  would  be  no  pity, 
courage,  hope,  fear,  sorrow,  joy  —  devoted- 


POLITICAL  TENDENCIES  153 

ness,  in  short  —  which  he  believes  form  the 
ultimate  allowed  to  man;  therefore  it  has  been 
his  policy  not  to  do  away  with  the  evil  in  the 
society  he  is  saving.  To  mitigate,  not  to 
cure,  has  been  his  aim. 

Browning  would,  himself,  answer  the  soph- 
istry, here,  by  showing  that  evil  though 
permitted  by  divine  power  was  only  a  means 
of  good  through  man's  working  against  what- 
ever he  conceives  to  be  evil  with  the  whole 
strength  of  his  being.  To  deliberately  follow 
the  policy  of  conserving  evil  would  be  in  the 
end  to  annihilate  the  good.  Prince  Hohenstiel- 
Schwangau  could  not  see  so  far  as  this. 

It  is  not  astonishing  that  with  such  a  policy 
as  this  his  methods  of  carrying  it  out  might 
seem  somewhat  dubious  if  not  positively 
criminal.  His  departure  from  his  early  ideal- 
ism is  excused  for  the  reason  that  idealism 
is  not  practicable  when  the  region  of  talk  is 
left  for  the  real  action  of  life.  Every  step  in 
his  own  aggrandizement  is  apologized  for  on 
the  ground  that  what  needed  to  be  accom- 
plished could  only  be  done  by  a  strong  hand 
and  that  strong  hand  his  own.  He  was  in 
fact  an  unprincipled  utilitarian  as  Browning 
presents  him,  who  spoiled  even  what  virtue 
resides  in  utilitarianism  by  letting  his  care 
for  saving  society  be  too  much  influenced 


154   BROWNING  AND  HIS  CENTURY 

by  his  desire  for  personal  glory.  One  ideal 
undertaking  he  permitted  himself,  the  freeing 
of  Italy  from  the  Austrian  yoke.  But  he  was 
not  strong  enough  for  any  such  high  flight 
of  idealism,  as  the  sequel  proved. 

Browning  does  not  bring  out  in  the  poem 
the  Emperor's  real  reasons  for  stopping  short 
in  the  Italian  campaign,  which  certainly  were 
sufficient  from  a  practical  standpoint,  but  as 
Archibald  Forbes  says  in  his  "  Life  of  Napo- 
leon," should  have  been  thought  of  before 
he  published  his  program  of  freedom  to  Italy 
"  from  the  Alps  to  the  Adriatic."  "  Even  when 
he  addressed  the  Italians  at  Milan,"  continues 
Forbes,  "the  new  light  had  not  broken  in 
upon  him  which  revealed  the  strength  of  the 
quadrilateral,  the  cost  of  expelling  the  Aus- 
trians  from  Venetia,  and  the  conviction  that 
further  French  successes  would  certainly  bring 
mobilized  Germany  into  the  field.  That  new 
light  seems  to  have  flashed  upon  Napoleon 
for  the  first  time  from  the  stern  Austrian 
ranks  on  the  day  of  Solferino.  It  was  then 
he  realized  that  should  he  go  forward  he 
would  be  obliged  to  attack  in  front  an  enemy 
entrenched  behind  great  fortresses,  and  pro- 
tected against  any  diversion  on  his  flanks  by 
the  neutrality  of  the  territories  surrounding 
him." 


POLITICAL  TENDENCIES          155 

Mrs.  Browning,  whose  consternation  and 
grief  over  Villafranca  broke  out  in  burning 
verse,  yet  made  a  defence  of  Napoleon's  action 
here  which  might  have  been  worked  into 
Browning's  poem  with  advantage.  She  wrote 
to  John  Foster  that  while  Napoleon's  inter- 
vention in  Italy  overwhelmed  her  with  joy 
it  did  not  dazzle  her  into  doubts  as  to  the 
motive  of  it,  "but  satisfied  a  patient  expecta- 
tion and  fulfilled  a  logical  inference.  Thus 
it  did  not  present  itself  to  my  mind  as  a  caprice 
of  power,  to  be  followed  perhaps  by  an 
onslaught  on  Belgium  and  an  invasion  of 
England.  Have  we  not  watched  for  a  year 
while  every  saddle  of  iniquity  has  been  tried 
on  the  Napoleonic  back,  and  nothing  fitted? 
Wasn't  he  to  crush  Piedmontese  institutions 
like  so  many  eggshells?  Was  he  ever  going 
away  with  his  army,  and  hadn't  he  occupied 
houses  in  Genoa  with  an  intention  of  bom- 
barding the  city?  Didn't  he  keep  troops  in 
the  north  after  Villafranca  on  purpose  to 
come  down  on  us  with  a  grand  duke  or  a 
Kingdom  of  Etruria  and  Plon-Plon  to  rule 
it?  And  wouldn't  he  give  back  Bologna  to 
the  Pope?  .  .  .  Were  not  Cipriani,  Farini 
and  other  patriots  his  'mere  creatures'  in 
treacherous  correspondence  with  the  Tuileries 
*  doing  his  dirty  work '  ?  "  Of  such  accusations 


156   BROWNING  AND  HIS  CENTURY 

as  these  the  intelligent  English  journals  were 
full,  but  she  maintains  that  against  "The 
Inane  and  Immense  Absurd"  from  which  they 
were  born  is  to  be  set  "a  nation  saved." 
She  realized  also  how  hard  Napoleon's  posi- 
tion in  France  must  be  to  maintain  "forty 
thousand  priests  with  bishops  of  the  color  of 
Monseigneurd' Orleans  and  company,  having, 
of  course,  a  certain  hold  on  the  agricultural 
population  which  forms  so  large  a  part  of  the 
basis  of  the  imperial  throne.  Then  add  to 
that  the  parties  who  use  this  Italian  question 
as  a  weapon  simply." 

Many  of  Napoleon's  own  statements  have 
furnished  Browning  with  the  arguments  used 
in  the  apology.  After  deliberately  destroying 
the  constitution,  for  example,  and  himself  be- 
ing the  cause  of  the  violence  and  bloodshed 
in  Paris,  he  coolly  addressed  the  people  in  the 
following  strain,  in  which  we  certainly  recog- 
nize Hohenstiel-Schwangau: 

"Frenchmen!  the  disturbances  are  appeased. 
Whatever  may  be  the  decision  of  the  people, 
society  is  saved.  The  first  part  of  my  task 
is  accomplished.  The  appeal  to  the  nation, 
for  the  purpose  of  terminating  the  struggle 
of  parties,  I  knew  would  not  cause  any  serious 
risk  to  the  public  tranquillity.  Why  should 
the  people  have  risen  against  me?  If  I  do 


POLITICAL  TENDENCIES          157 

not  any  longer  possess  your  confidence  —  if 
your  ideas  are  changed  —  there  is  no  occasion 
to  make  precious  blood  flow;  it  will  be  suffi- 
cient to  place  an  adverse  vote  in  the  urn. 
I  shall  always  respect  the  decision  of  the 
people." 

His  cleverness  in  combining  the  idea  of 
authority  with  that  of  the  idea  of  obeying 
the  will  of  the  people  is  curiously  illustrated 
in  his  speech  at  the  close  of  his  dictatorship, 
during  which  it  must  be  confessed  that  he 
had  done  excellently  well  for  the  country  — 
so  well,  indeed,  that  even  the  socialists  were 
ready  to  cry  "  Vive  V Empereur!  " 

"While  watching  me  reestablish  the  institutions  and 
reawaken  the  memories  of  the  Empire,  people  have  repeated 
again  and  again  that  I  wished  to  reconstitute  the  Empire 
itself.  If  this  had  been  so  the  transformation  would  have 
been  accomplished  long  ago;  neither  the  means  nor  the 
opportunities  would  have  been  lacking.  .  .  .  But  I 
have  remained  content  with  that  I  had.  Resolved  now,  as 
heretofore,  to  do  all  in  my  power  for  France  and  nothing  for 
myself,  I  would  accept  any  modification  of  the  present 
state  of  things  only  if  forced  by  necessity.  ...  If  parties 
remain  quiet,  nothing  shall  be  changed.  But  if  they  endeavor 
to  sap  the  foundations  of  my  government;  if  they  deny  the 
legitimacy  of  the  result  of  the  popular  vote;  if,  in  short,  they 
continually  put  the  future  of  the  country  in  jeopardy,  then, 
but  only  then,  it  might  be  prudent  to  ask  the  people  for  a  new 
title  which  would  irrevocably  fix  on  my  head  the  power  with 
which  they  have  already  clothed  me.  But  let  us  not  antici- 


158   BROWNING  AND  HIS  CENTURY 

pate  difficulties;  let  us  preserve  the  Republic.  Under  its 
banner  I  am  anxious  to  inaugurate  once  more  an  epoch  of 
reconciliation  and  pardon;  and  I  call  on  all  without  dis- 
tinction who  will  frankly  cooperate  with  me  for  the  public 
good." 

In  contrast  to  such  fair-sounding  phrases 
Napoleon  was  capable  of  the  most  dishon- 
orable tactics  in  order  to  gain  his  ends.  Wit- 
ness the  episode  of  his  tempting  Bismarck 
with  offers  of  an  alliance  against  Austria  at 
the  same  time  that  he  was  treating  secretly 
with  Francis  Joseph  for  the  cession  of  Venetia 
in  return  for  Silesia.  And  while  negotiating 
secretly  and  separately  with  these  two  sworn 
enemies,  he  pretended  to  be  so  disinterested 
as  to  suggest  the  submission  of  their  quarrel 
to  a  European  congress. 

Browning  has  certainly  presented  a  good 
portrait  of  the  man  as  the  history  of  his  own 
utterances  contrasted  with  the  history  of  his 
actions  proves.  In  trying  to  bridge  with 
this  apology  the  discrepancies  between  the 
two  he  has,  however,  attributed  to  Louis 
Napoleon  a  degree  of  self-consciousness  be- 
yond any  ever  evinced  by  him.  The  principle 
of  imperialism  was  a  conviction  with  him. 
That  he  desired  to  help  the  people  of  France 
and  to  a  great  extent  succeeded,  is  true;  that 
he  combined  with  this  desire  the  desire  of 


POLITICAL  TENDENCIES          159 

power  for  himself  is  true;  that  he  used  unscru- 
pulous means  to  gain  whatever  end  he  desired 
when  such  were  necessary  is  true;  but  that  he 
was  conscious  of  his  own  despicable  traits  to 
the  extent  that  the  poet  makes  him  conscious 
of  them  is  most  unlikely.  Nor  is  it  likely  that 
he  would  defend  himself  upon  any  such 
subtle  ground  as  that  his  character  and  tem- 
perament being  the  gift  of  God  he  was 
bound  to  follow  out  his  nature  in  order  that 
God's  purposes  might  be  accomplished.  It  is 
rather  an  explanation  of  his  life  from  the 
philosopher's  or  psychologist's  standpoint  than 
a  self-conscious  revelation.  It  is  none  the 
less  interesting  on  this  account,  while  the 
scene  setting  gives  it  a  thoroughly  human  and 
dramatic  touch. 

Whatever  may  be  said  of  Napoleon  himself, 
his  rule  was  fraught  with  consequences  of 
import  for  the  whole  of  Europe,  not  because 
of  what  he  was,  but  because  of  what  he  was 
not.  He  was  an  object  lesson  on  the  fallacy 
of  trying  to  govern  so  that  all  parties  will  be 
pleased  by  autocratically  keeping  each  one 
from  fully  expressing  itself.  The  result  is  that 
each  grows  more  aware  of  the  suppression 
than  of  the  amount  of  freedom  allowed  to  it, 
and  nobody  is  pleased.  When  added  to  such 
a  policy  as  this  is  the  surmounting  desire  for 


160   BROWNING  AND  HIS  CENTURY 

power  and  the  Machiavellian  determination 
to  attain  it  by  any  means,  fair  or  foul,  a 
principle  of  statecraft  which  by  the  middle 
of  the  century  could  not  be  practised  in  its 
most  acute  form  without  arousing  the  most 
severe  criticism,  his  power  carried  within  it 
the  seeds  of  destruction. 

It  has  been  said  that  "never  in  the  history 
of  the  world  has  one  man  undertaken  a  task 
more  utterly  beyond  the  power  of  mortal  man 
than  that  which  Louis  Napoleon  was  pledged 
to  carry  through."  He  professed  to  be  at  one 
and  the  same  time  the  elect  sovereign  of  the 
people,  a  son  of  the  revolution,  a  champion 
of  universal  suffrage,  and  an  adversary  of 
the  demagogues.  In  the  first  of  these  char- 
acters he  was  bound  to  justify  his  elevation 
by  economic  and  social  reforms,  in  his 
second  character  he  had  to  destroy  the  last 
trace  of  political  liberty.  He  had,  in  fact, 
assumed  various  utterly  incompatible  atti- 
tudes, and  the  day  that  the  masses  found 
themselves  deceived  in  their  expectations,  and 
the  middle  classes  found  their  interests  were 
betrayed,  reaction  was  inevitable. 

In  spite  of  his  heinous  faults,  however, 
historians  have  grown  more  and  more  inclined 
to  admit  that  Napoleon  filled  for  a  time  a 
necessary  niche  in  the  line  of  progress,  just 


WILLIAM  EWART  GLADSTONE 


POLITICAL  TENDENCIES  _      161 

that  step  which  Browning  makes  him  say  the 
genius  will  recognize  that  he  fills  —  namely,  to 

"Carry  the  incompleteness  on  a  stage, 
Make  what  was  crooked  straight,  and  roughness  smooth, 
And  weakness  strong:  wherein  if  I  succeed, 
It  will  not  prove  the  worst  achievement,  sure 
In  the  eyes  at  least  of  one  man,  one  I  look 
Nowise  to  catch  in  critic  company: 
To-wit,  the  man  inspired,  the  genius,  self 
Destined  to  come  and  change  things  thoroughly. 
He,  at  least,  finds  his  business  simplified, 
Distinguishes  the  done  from  undone,  reads 
Plainly  what  meant  and  did  not  mean  this  time 
We  live  in,  and  I  work  on,  and  transmit 
To  such  successor:  he  will  operate 
On  good  hard  substance,  not  mere  shade  and  shine. " 

That  is,  at  a  time  when  Europe  was  seething 
with  the  idea  of  a  new  order,  in  which  the 
ideal  of  nationality  was  to  take  the  place  of 
such  decaying  ideas  as  the  divine  right  of 
kings,  balance  of  power,  and  so  on,  Napoleon 
held  on  to  these  ideas  just  long  enough  to 
prevent  a  general  disintegration  of  society. 
He  held  in  his  hands  the  balance  of  power 
until  the  nations  began  to  find  themselves,  and 
in  the  case  of  Italy  actually  helped  on  the 
triumph  of  the  new  order. 

It  is  interesting  to  note  in  this  connection 
that  one  of  the  principal  factors  in  the  making 
of  Gladstone  into  the  stanch  liberal  which 


162   BROWNING  AND  HIS  CENTURY 

he  became  was  the  freeing  of  Italy,  in  which 
Napoleon  had  so  large  a  share.  Gladstone 
himself  wrote  in  1892  of  the  events  which 
occurred  in  the  fifth  decade:  "Of  the  various 
and  important  incidents  which  associated  me 
almost  unawares  with  foreign  affairs  .  .  . 
I  will  only  say  that  they  all  contributed  to 
forward  the  action  of  those  home  causes  more 
continuous  in  their  operation,  which,  without 
in  any  way  effacing  my  old  sense  of  reverence 
for  the  past,  determined  for  me  my  place  in 
the  present  and  my  direction  toward  the 
future."  In  1859  Gladstone  dined  with  Cavour 
at  Turin,  when  the  latter  had  the  oppor- 
tunity of  explaining  his  position  and  policy 
to  the  man  whom  he  considered  "one  of  the 
sincerest  and  most  important  friends  that 
Italy  had."  But  as  his  biographer  says,  Glad- 
stone was  still  far  from  the  glorified  democracy 
of  the  Mazzinian  propaganda,  and  expressed 
his  opinion  that  England  should  take  the 
stand  that  she  would  be  glad  if  Italian  unity 
proved  feasible, "  but  the  conditions  of  it  must 
be  gradually  matured  by  a  course  of  improve- 
ment in  the  several  states,  and  by  the  political 
education  of  the  people;  if  it  cannot  be  reached 
by  these  means,  it  hardly  will  by  any  others; 
and  certainly  not  by  opinions  which  closely 
link  Italian  reconstruction  with  European  dis- 


POLITICAL  TENDENCIES          163 

organization  and  general  war."  Yet  he  was 
as  distressed  as  Mrs.  Browning  at  the  peace  of 
Villafranca,  about  which  he  wrote:  "I  little 
thought  to  have  lived  to  see  the  day  when  the 
conclusion  of  a  peace  should  in  my  own  mind 
cause  disgust  rather  than  impart  relief."  By 
the  end  of  the  year  he  thought  better  of 
Napoleon  and  expressed  himself  again  some- 
what in  the  same  strain  as  Mrs.  Browning, 
to  the  effect  that  the  Emperor  had  shown, 
"though  partial  and  inconsistent,  indications 
of  a  genuine  feeling  for  the  Italians  —  and 
far  beyond  this  he  has  committed  himself 
very  considerably  to  the  Italian  cause  in  the 
face  of  the  world.  When  in  reply  to  all 
that,  we  fling  in  his  face  the  truce  of  Villa- 
franca, he  may  reply  —  and  the  answer  is 
not  without  force  —  that  he  stood  single- 
handed  in  a  cause  when  any  moment  Europe 
might  have  stood  combined  against  him. 
We  gave  him  verbal  sympathy  and  encourage- 
ment, or  at  least  criticism;  no  one  else  gave 
him  anything  at  all.  No  doubt  he  showed 
then  that  he  had  undertaken  a  work  to  which 
his  powers  were  unequal;  but  I  do  not  think 
that,  when  fairly  judged,  he  can  be  said  to 
have  given  proof  by  that  measure  of  insin- 
cerity or  indifference." 

Gladstone's  gradual  and  forceful  emancipa- 


164   BROWNING  AND  HIS  CENTURY 

tion  into  the  ranks  of  the  liberals  may  be 
followed  in  the  fascinating  pages  of  Morley's 
"Life,"  who  at  the  end  declares  that  his 
performances  in  the  sphere  of  active  govern- 
ment were  beyond  comparison.  Gladstone's 
own  summary  of  his  career  gives  a  glimpse 
of  what  these  performances  were  as  well  as 
an  interpretation  of  the  century  and  Eng- 
land's future  growth  which  indicate  that 
had  he  had  another  twenty  years  in  which  to 
progress,  perhaps  fewer,  he  would  beyond  all 
doubt  have  become  an  out  and  out  social 
democrat. 

"The  public  aspect  of  the  period  which  closes  for  me  with 
the  fourteen  years  (so  I  love  to  reckon  them)  of  my  formal 
connection  with  Midlothian  is  too  important  to  pass  with- 
out a  word.  I  consider  it  as  beginning  with  the  Reform 
Act  of  Lord  Grey's  government.  That  great  act  was  for 
England,  improvement  and  extension:  for  Scotland  it  was 
political  birth,  the  beginning  of  a  duty  and  a  power,  neither  of 
which  had  attached  to  the  Scottish  nation  in  the  preceding 
period.  I  rejoice  to  think  how  the  solemnity  of  that  duty 
has  been  recognized,  and  how  that  power  has  been  used. 
The  threescore  years  offer  as  the  pictures  of  what  the 
historian  will  recognize  as  a  great  legislative  and  adminis- 
trative period  —  perhaps,  on  the  whole,  the  greatest  in  our 
annals.  It  has  been  predominantly  a  history  of  emanci- 
pation —  that  is,  of  enabling  man  to  do  his  work  of  eman- 
cipation, political,  economical,  social,  moral,  intellectual. 
Not  numerous  merely,  but  almost  numberless,  have  been 
the  causes* brought  to  issue,  and  in  every  one  of  them  I  rejoice 


POLITICAL  TENDENCIES  165 

to  think  that,  so  far  as  my  knowledge  goes,  Scotland  has  done 
battle  for  the  right. 

"Another  period  has  opened  and  is  opening  still  —  a 
period  possibly  of  yet  greater  moral  dangers,  certainly  a  great 
ordeal  for  those  classes  which  are  now  becoming  largely 
conscious  of  power,  and  never  heretofore  subject  to  its 
deteriorating  influences.  These  have  been  confined  in  their 
actions  to  the  classes  above  them,  because  they  were  its  sole 
possessors.  Now  is  the  time  for  the  true  friend  of  his  coun- 
try to  remind  the  masses  that  their  present  political  ele- 
vation is  owing  to  no  principles  less  broad  and  noble  than 
these  —  the  love  of  liberty,  of  liberty  for  all  without  dis- 
tinction of  class,  creed  or  country,  and  the  resolute  preference  oj 
the  interests  of  the  whole  to  any  interest,  be  it  what  it  may,  of 
a  narrower  scope. " 

Mr.  Gladstone  entered  Parliament  at 
twenty-three,  in  1832,  and  a  year  later  Brown- 
ing, at  twenty-one,  printed  his  first  poem, 
"Pauline."  The  careers  of  the  two  men  ran 
nearly  parallel,  for  Browning  died  in  1889,  on 
the  day  of  the  publication  of  his  last  volume 
of  poems,  and  Gladstone's  retirement  from 
active  life  took  place  in  1894,  shortly  after 
the  defeat  of  his  second  Home  Rule  Bill. 
Though  there  is  nothing  to  show  that  these 
two  men  came  into  touch  with  each  other 
during  their  life,  and  while  it  is  probable  that 
Browning  would  not  have  been  in  sympathy 
with  many  of  the  aspects  of  Gladstone's 
mentality,  there  is  an  undercurrent  of  simi- 


166   BROWNING  AND  HIS  CENTURY 

larity  in  their  attitude  of  mind  toward  reform. 
The  passage  in  "Sordello"  already  referred 
to,  written  in  1840,  might  be  regarded  almost 
as  a  prophecy  of  the  sort  of  leader  Gladstone 
became.  I  have  said  of  that  passage  that  it 
expressed  the  ideal  of  the  opportunist,  not 
that  of  the  revolutionary.  Opportunist  Mr. 
Gladstone  was  often  called  by  captious  critics, 
but  any  unbiased  reader  following  his  career 
now  as  a  whole  will  see,  as  Morley  points  out, 
that  whenever  there  was  a  chance  of  getting 
anything  done  it  was  generally  found  that  he 
was  the  only  man  with  courage  and  resolution 
enough  to  attempt  it. 

A  distinction  should  be  made  between  that 
sort  of  opportunism  which  waits  upon  the 
growth  of  conditions  favorable  to  the  taking 
of  a  short  step  in  amelioration,  and  what  might 
be  called  militant  opportunism,  which,  at  all 
tunes,  seizes  every  opportunity  to  take  a 
step  in  the  direction  of  an  evolving,  all- 
absorbing  ideal.  Is  not  this  the  opportunism 
of  both  a  Browning  and  a  Gladstone?  Such 
a  policy  at  least  tacitly  acknowledges  that  the 
law  of  evolution  is  the  law  that  should  be 
followed,  and  that  the  mass  of  the  people  as 
well  as  the  leader  have  their  share  in  the 
unfolding  of  the  coming  ideal,  though  their 
part  in  it  may  be  less  conscious  than  his  and 


POLITICAL  TENDENCIES          167 

though  they  may  need  his  leadership  to  make 
the  steps  by  the  way  clear. 

The  other  political  leader  of  the  Victorian 
era  with  whom  Gladstone  came  most  con- 
stantly into  conflict  was  Disraeli,  of  whom 
Browning  in  "George  Bubb  Dodington"  has 
given  a  sketch  in  order  to  draw  a  contrast 
between  the  unsuccessful  policy  of  a  charlatan 
of  the  Dodington  type  and  that  of  one  like 
Disraeli.  The  skeptical  multitude  of  to-day 
cannot  be  taken  in  by  declarations  that  the 
politician  is  working  only  for  their  good,  and 
if  he  frankly  acknowledged  that  he  is  working 
also  for  his  own  good  they  would  have  none 
of  him.  The  nice  point  to  be  decided  is  how 
shall  he  work  for  his  own  good  and  yet  gain 
control  of  the  multitude.  Dodington  did  not 
know  the  secret,  but  according  to  Brown- 
ing Disraeli  did,  and  what  is  the  secret?  It 
seems  to  be  an  attitude  of  absolute  self- 
assurance,  a  disregard  of  consistency,  a  scorn 
of  the  people  he  is  dealing  with,  and  a  pose 
suggesting  the  play  of  supernatural  forces  in 
his  life. 

This  is  a  true  enough  picture  of  the  real 
Disraeli,  who  seems  to  have  had  a  leaning 
toward  a  belief  in  spiritualism,  and  who  was 
notorious  for  his  unblushing  changes  of  opin- 
ion and  for  a  style  of  oratory  in  which  his 


168   BROWNING  AND  HIS  CENTURY 

points  were  made  by  clever  invective  and 
sarcasm  hurled  at  his  opponents  instead  of  by 
any  sound,  logical  argument,  it  being,  indeed 
one  of  his  brilliant  discoveries  that  "wisdom 
ought  to  be  concealed  under  folly,  and  con- 
sistency under  caprice." 

Many  choice  bits  of  history  might  be  given 
in  illustration  of  Browning's  portrayal  of 
him;  for  example,  speaking  against  reform, 
he  exclaims:  "Behold  the  late  Prime  Minister 
and  the  Reform  Ministry!  The  spirited  and 
snow-white  steeds  have  gradually  changed 
into  an  equal  number  of  sullen  and  obstinate 
donkeys,  while  Mr.  Merryman,  who,  like 
the  Lord  Chancellor,  was  once  the  very  life 
of  the  ring,  now  lies  his  despairing  length  in 
the  middle  of  the  stage,  with  his  jokes  ex- 
hausted and  his  bottle  empty." 

As  a  specimen  of  his  quickness  in  retort 
may  be  cited  an  account  of  an  episode  which 
occurred  at  the  time  when  he  came  out  as 
the  champion  of  the  Taunton  Blues.  In  the 
course  of  his  speech  he  "enunciated,"  says  an 
anonymous  writer  of  the  fifties,  "one  of  those 
daring  historical  paradoxes  which  are  so  sig- 
nally characteristic  of  the  man:  *  Twenty 
years  ago'  said  the  Taunton  Blue  hero, 
'tithes  were  paid  in  Ireland  more  regularly 
than  now!' 


POLITICAL  TENDENCIES          169 

"Even  his  supporters  appeared  astounded 
by  this  declaration. 

"How  do  you  know?'  shouted  an  elector. 

"I  have  read  it,'  replied  Mr.  Disraeli. 

"Oh,  oh!'  exclaimed  the  elector. 

"'I  know  it,'  retorted  Disraeli,  *  because  I 
have  read,  and  you'  (looking  daggers  at  his 
questioner)  'have  not.' 

"This  was  considered  a  very  happy  re- 
joinder by  the  friends  of  the  candidate,  and 
was  loudly  cheered  by  the  Blues. 

"Didn't  you  write  a  novel?'  again  asked 
the  importunate  elector,  not  very  much 
frightened  even  by  Mr.  Disraeli's  oratorical 
thunder  and  the  sardonical  expression  on  his 
face. 

'"I  have  certainly  written  a  novel,'  Mr. 
Disraeli  replied;  'but  I  hope  there  is  no 
disgrace  in  being  connected  with  literature.' 

" '  You  are  a  curiosity  of  literature,  you  are,' 
said  the  humorous  elector. 

"'I  hope,'  said  Mr.  Disraeli,  with  great 
indignation,  'there  is  no  disgrace  in  having 
written  that  which  has  been  read  by  hundreds 
of  thousands  of  my  fellow-countrymen,  and 
which  has  been  translated  into  every  European 
language.  I  trust  that  one  who  is  an  author 
by  the  gift  of  nature  may  be  as  good  a  man 
as  one  who  is  Master  of  the  Mint  by  the  gift 


170   BROWNING  AND  HIS  CENTURY 

of  Lord  Melbourne.'  Great  applause  then 
burst  forth  from  the  Blues.  Mr.  Disraeli 
continued,  'I  am  not,  however,  the  puppet 
of  the  Duke  of  Buckingham,  as  one  newspaper 
has  described  me;  while  a  fellow  laborer  in 
the  same  vineyard  designated  me  the  next 
morning,  "  the  Marleybone  Radical."  If  there 
is  anything  on  which  I  figure  myself  it  is 
my  consistency.' 

"'Oh,  oh!'  exclaimed  many  hearers. 

"I  am  prepared  to  prove  it,'  said  Mr. 
Disraeli,  with  menacing  energy.  *I  am  pre- 
pared to  prove  it,  and  always  shall  be,  either 
in  the  House  of  Commons  or  on  the  hustings, 
considering  the  satisfactory  manner  in  which 
I  have  been  attacked,  but  I  do  not  think  the 
attack  will  be  repeated." 

It  seems  extraordinary  that  such  tactics  of 
bluff  could  take  a  man  onward  to  the  supreme 
place  of  Prime  Minister.  Possibly  it  was  just 
as  much  owing  to  his  power  to  amuse  as  to 
any  of  the  causes  brought  out  by  Browning. 
Is  there  anything  the  majority  of  mankind 
loves  more  than  a  laugh? 

The  conflicts  of  Disraeli  and  Gladstone 
form  one  of  the  most  remarkable  episodes  of 
nineteenth-century  politics.  One  is  tempted 
to  draw  a  parallel  between  Napoleon  III  and 
Disraeli,  whose  tactics  were  much  the  same, 


POLITICAL  TENDENCIES          171 

except  that  Disraeli  was  backed  up  by  a 
much  keener  intellect.  Possibly  he  held  a 
part  in  English  politics  similar  to  that  held 
by  Napoleon  in  European  politics  —  that  is, 
he  conserved  the  influences  of  the  past  long 
enough  to  make  the  future  more  sure  of  itself. 
Browning,  however,  evidently  considered  him 
nothing  more  than  a  successful  charlatan. 

When  Browning  wrote,  "Why  I  Am  a 
Liberal,"  in  1885,  liberalism  in  English  politics 
had  reached  its  climax  in  the  nineteenth 
century  through  the  introduction  by  Mr. 
Gladstone,  then  Premier  for  the  third  time, 
of  his  Home  Rule  Bill.  The  injustices  suf- 
fered by  the  Irish  people  and  the  horrible 
atrocities  resulting  from  these  had  had  their 
effect  upon  Mr.  Gladstone  and  had  taken 
him  the  last  great  step  in  his  progress  toward 
freedom.  The  meeting  at  which  this  bill  was 
introduced  has  been  described  as  the  greatest 
legislative  assembly  of  modern  times.  The 
House  was  full  to  overflowing,  and  in  a  bril- 
liant speech  of  nearly  four  hours  the  veteran 
leader  held  his  audience  breathless  as  he 
unfolded  his  plans  for  the  betterment  of  Irish 
conditions.  We  are  told  that  during  the 
debates  that  followed  there  was  a  remarkable 
exhibition  of  feeling  —  "the  passions,  the 
enthusiasm,  the  fear,  and  hope,  and  fury  and 


172   BROWNING  AND  HIS  CENTURY 

exultation,  sweeping,  now  the  surface,  now 
stirring  to  its  depths  the  great  gathering." 
The  bill,  which  included,  besides  the  founding 
of  an  Irish  Parliament  in  Dublin,  which  would 
have  the  power  to  deal  with  all  matters 
"save  the  Crown,  the  Army  and  Navy, 
Foreign  and  Colonial  Policy,  Trade,  Naviga- 
tion, Currency,  Imperial  Taxation,  and  the 
Endowment  of  Churches,"  also  provided  that 
Ireland  should  annually  contribute  to  the 
English  exchequer  the  sum  of  £3,243,000. 

Eloquence,  enthusiasm,  exultation  —  all 
came  to  naught.  The  bill  did  not  even  suit 
the  liberals,  the  bargain  from  a  financial 
point  of  view  being  regarded  as  hard.  It  was 
defeated  in  Parliament  and  fared  no  better 
when  an  appeal  was  made  to  the  country, 
and  Mr.  Gladstone  resigned.  In  nine  months, 
however,  a  general  election  returned  him  to 
office  again,  and  again  he  introduced  a  Home 
Rule  Bill,  and  though  it  passed  the  Commons, 
it  was  overwhelmingly  defeated  in  the  House 
of  Lords. 

It  is  pleasant  to  reflect  that  in  this  last  act 
of  a  noble  and  brilliant  career  spent  in  the 
interests  of  the  ever-growing  ideals  of  democ- 
racy Gladstone  had  the  sympathy  of  Brown- 
ing, shown  by  his  emphatic  expression  of 
"liberal  sentiments"  at  a  momentous  crisis, 


173 

when  a  speech  on  the  liberal  side  even  from 
the  mouth  of  a  poet  counted  for  much. 

As  we  have  seen,  the  reflections  in  Brown- 
ing's poetry  of  his  interest  hi  public  affairs 
are  comparatively  few,  yet  such  glimpses  as  he 
has  given  prove  him,  beyond  all  doubt,  to  have 
been  a  democrat  hi  principle,  to  have  arrived, 
in  fact,  at  the  beginning  of  his  career  at  a 
point  beyond  that  attained  by  England's 
rulers  at  the  end  of  the  century.  This  far- 
sighted  vision  of  his  may  have  been  another 
reason  to  be  added  to  those  mentioned  at 
the  beginning  of  the  chapter  why  his  interest 
in  the  practical  affairs  of  his  country  did  not 
more  often  express  itself.  The  wrangling,  the 
inconsequentialness,  the  eloquence  expended 
upon  mere  personal  interests  which  make  up 
by  far  the  larger  proportion  of  all  political 
agitation,  are  irritating  to  the  last  degree  to  a 
man  of  vision.  His  part  was  that  of  the 
philosopher  and  artist  —  to  watch  and  to 
record  in  the  portrayal  of  his  many  characters 
the  underlying  principle  of  freedom,  which 
was  the  guiding  star  in  all  his  work. 


IV 


SOCIAL   IDEALS 

BROWNING'S  social  ideals  revolve  about 
a  trinity  of  values:  the  value  of  love, 
the  value  of  truth,  the  value  of  evil.  His 
ethics  are  the  natural  outgrowth  of  his  mysti- 
cism and  his  idealism,  with  no  touch  of  the 
utilitarianism  which  has  been  a  distinctive 
mark  of  the  fabric  of  English  society  during 
the  nineteenth  century,  nor,  on  the  other 
hand,  of  the  hidebound  conventionalism 
which  has  limited  personal  freedom  in  ways 
detrimental  to  just  those  aspects  of  social 
morality  it  was  most  anxious  to  preserve. 

The  fact  of  which  Browning  seemed  more 
conscious  than  of  any  other  fact  of  his  ex- 
istence, and  which,  as  we  have  seen,  was  the 
very  core  of  his  mysticism,  was  feeling. 
Things  about  which  an  ordinary  man  would 
feel  no  emotion  at  all  start  in  his  mind  a  train 
of  thoughts,  ending  only  in  the  perception  of 
divine  love.  The  eating  of  a  palatable  fig 
fills  his  heart  with  such  gratefulness  to  the 
giver  of  the  fig  that  immediately  he  fares 

174 


SOCIAL  IDEALS  175 

forth  upon  the  way  which  brings  him  into 
the  presence  of  the  Prime  Giver  from  whom 
all  gifts  are  received.  What  ecstasy  of  feeling 
in  the  artist  aspiring  through  his  art  to  the 
higher  regions  of  Absolute  Beauty  in  "Abt 
Vogler"  of  the  poet  who  loves,  aspiring  to  the 
divine  through  his  human  love  in  the  epi- 
logue to  "Ferishtah's  Fancies!"  The  per- 
ception of  feeling  was  so  intense  that  it  be- 
came in  him  exalted  and  concentrated,  in- 
capable of  dissipating  itself  in  ephemeral 
sentimentalities,  and  this  it  is  which  gives 
feeling  to  Browning  its  mystical  quality,  and 
puts  personal  love  upon  the  plane  of  a  veri- 
table revelation. 

Though  reports  have  often  floated  about  in 
regard  to  his  attachments  to  other  women  after 
Mrs.  Browning's  death,  the  fact  remains  that 
he  did  not  marry  again,  that  he  wrote  the 
lyrics  in  "Ferishtah's  Fancies,"  and  the 
sonnet  to  Edward  Fitzgerald  just  before  his 
death,  and  thirty  years  after  his  wife's  death. 
Moreover,  in  the  epilogue  to  "The  Two  Poets 
of  Croisic"  he  gives  a  hint  of  what  might  be 
his  attitude  toward  any  other  women  who 
may  have  come  into  his  lif e,  in  the  application 
of  the  tale  of  the  cricket  chirping  "love"  in 
the  place  of  the  broken  string  of  a  poet's 
lyre— 


176    BROWNING  AND  HIS  CENTURY 

"For  as  victory  was  nighest, 

While  I  sang  and  played, 
With  my  lyre  at  lowest,  highest, 

Right  alike  —  one  string  that  made 

Love  sound  soft  was  snapt  in  twain, 

Never  to  be  heard  again, 

"Had  not  a  kind  cricket  fluttered, 

Perched  upon  the  place 
Vacant  left,  and  duly  uttered, 

'Love,  Love,  Love,'  when'er  the  bass 

Asked  the  treble  to  atone 

For  its  somewhat  sombre  drone. " 

These  rare  qualities  of  constancy,  exalta- 
tion and  aspiration,  in  love  sublimating  it 
into  a  spiritual  emotion,  which  was  evidently 
the  distinctive  mark  of  Browning's  person- 
ality on  the  emotional  side,  furnishes  the  key- 
note by  which  his  presentation  or  solution 
of  the  social  problems  involved  in  the  rela- 
tions of  men  and  women  is  always  to  be 
gauged. 

He  had  been  writing  ten  years  when  he 
essayed  his  first  serious  presentation  of  what 
we  might  to-day  call  a  problem  play  on  an 
English  subject  in  "A  Blot  in  the  'Scutch- 
eon." In  all  of  his  long  poems  and  in 
many  of  his  short  ones  personal  love  had 
been  portrayed  under  various  conditions  - 
between  friends  or  lovers,  husband  and  wife, 


SOCIAL  IDEALS  177 

or  father  and  son,  and  in  every  instance  it  is 
a  dominating  influence  in  the  action,  as  we 
have  already  seen  it  to  be  in  "Strafford." 
Again,  in  "  King  Victor  and  King  Charles"  the 
action  centers  upon  Charles's  love  for  his 
father,  and  is  also  moulded  in  many  ways 
by  Polyxena's  love  for  her  husband,  Charles. 

But  a  perception  of  the  possible  heights  to 
be  obtained  by  the  passion  of  romantic  love 
only  fully  emerges  in  "Pippa  Passes,"  for  ex- 
ample in  Ottima's  vision  of  the  reality  of  her 
own  love,  despite  her  great  sin  as  contrasted 
with  that  of  Sebald's,  and  in  Jules's  rising  above 
the  conventionally  low  when  he  discovers  he 
has  been  duped,  and  perceiving  in  Phene  a 
purity  of  soul  which  no  earthly  conditions 
had  been  able  to  sully, 

"Who,  what  is  Lutwyche,  what  Natalia's  friends, 
What  the  whole  world  except  our  love  —  my  own, 
Own  Phene?    .     .    . 
I  do  but  break  these  paltry  models  up 
To  begin  art  afresh     .     .     . 
Some  unsuspected  isle  in  the  far  seas! 
Like  a  god  going  through  the  world  there  stands 
One  mountain  for  a  moment  in  the  dusk, 
Whole  brotherhoods  of  cedars  on  its  brow: 
And  you  are  ever  by  me  while  I  gaze 
—  Are  in  my  arms  as  now  —  as  now  —  as  now! 
Some  unsuspected  isle  in  the  far  seas! 
Some  unsuspected  isle  in  far-off  seas!" 


178   BROWNING  AND  HIS  CENTURY 

Again,  in  "The  Return  of  the  Druses" 
there  is  a  complicated  clash  between  the 
ideal  of  religious  reverence  for  the  incarna- 
tion of  divinity  in  Djabal  and  human  love 
for  him  in  the  soul  of  Anael,  resulting  at  the 
end  in  the  destruction  of  the  idea  of  DjabaPs 
supernatural  divinity,  and  his  reinstate- 
ment perceived  by  Anael  as  divine  through 
the  complete  exaltation  of  his  human  love 
for  Anael. 

These  examples,  however,  while  they  illus- 
trate Browning's  attitude  toward  human 
love,  are  far  enough  removed  from  nineteenth- 
century  conditions  in  England.  In  "Pippa," 
the  social  conditions  of  nineteenth-century 
Italy  are  reflected;  in  "The  Druses,"  the 
religious  conditions  of  the  Druse  nation  in  the 
fifteenth  century. 

In  the  "Blot  in  the  'Scutcheon"  a  situation 
is  developed  which  comes  home  forcibly  to 
the  nineteenth-century  Englishman  despite 
the  fact  that  the  scene  is  supposed  to  be  laid 
in  the  eighteenth  century.  The  poet's  treat- 
ment of  the  clash  between  the  ideal,  cherished 
by  an  old  and  honored  aristocratic  family  of 
its  own  immaculate  purity,  and  the  spon- 
taneous, complete  and  exalted  love  of  the 
two  young  people  who  in  their  ecstasy  tran- 
scend conventions,  illustrates,  as  perhaps  no 


SOCIAL  IDEALS  179 

other  situation  could,  his  reverential  attitude 
upon  the  subject  of  love.  Gwendolen,  the 
older,  intuitional  woman,  and  Mertoun,  the 
young  lover,  are  the  only  people  in  the  play 
to  realize  that  purity  may  exist  although  the 
social  enactments  upon  which  it  is  supposed  to 
depend  have  not  been  complied  with.  Tres- 
ham  learns  it  only  when  he  has  wounded 
Mertoun  unto  death;  Mildred  never  learns 
it.  The  grip  of  conventional  teaching  has 
sunk  so  deeply  into  her  nature  that  she  feels 
her  sin  unpardonable  and  only  to  be  atoned 
for  by  death.  Mertoun,  as  he  dies,  gives 
expression  to  the  essential  purity  and  truth  of 
his  nature  in  these  words: 

"Die  along  with  me, 

Dear  Mildred!    'tis  so  easy,  and  you'll  'scape 
So  much  unkindness!    Can  I  lie  at  rest, 
With  rude  speech  spoken  to  you,  ruder  deeds 
Done  to  you?  —  heartless  men  shall  have  my  heart 
And  I  tied  down  with  grave-clothes  and  the  worm, 
Aware,  perhaps,  of  every  blow  —  O  God!  — 
Upon  those  lips  —  yet  of  no  power  to  bear 
The  felon  stripe  by  stripe!    Die  Mildred!    Leave 
Their  honorable  world  to  them!    For  God 
We're  good  enough,  though  the  world  casts  us  out." 

This  is  only  one  of  many  instances  which 
go  to  show  that  Browning's  conception  of 
love  might  include,  on  the  one  hand,  a  com- 


180   BROWNING  AND  HIS  CENTURY 

plete  freedom  from  the  trammels  imposed 
upon  it  by  conventional  codes  of  morality, 
but  on  the  other,  was  so  real  and  permanent 
a  sympathy  between  two  souls,  and  so  ab- 
solute a  revelation  of  divine  beauty,  that  its 
morality  far  transcended  that  of  the  con- 
ventional codes,  which  under  the  guise  of 
lawful  alliances  permit  and  even  encourage 
marriages  based  upon  the  most  external  of 
attractions,  or  those  entered  into  for  merely 
social  or  commercial  reasons.  A  sin  against 
love  seems  in  Browning's  eyes  to  come  the 
nearest  of  all  human  failings  to  the  unpar- 
donable sin. 

It  must  not  be  supposed  from  what  has 
been  said  that  he  had  any  anarchistic  desire 
to  do  away  with  the  solemnization  of  mar- 
riage, but  his  eyes  were  wide  open  to  the 
fact  that  there  might  be  sin  within  the 
marriage  bond,  and  just  as  surely  that 
there  might  be  love  pure  and  true  outside  of 
it. 

Another  illustration  of  Browning's  belief 
in  the  existence  of  a  love  such  as  Shakespeare 
describes,  which  looks  on  tempests  and  is 
never  shaken,  is  given  in  the  "Inn  Album." 
Here,  again,  the  characters  are  all  English, 
and  the  story  is  based  upon  an  actual  oc- 
currence. Such  changes  as  Browning  has 


SOCIAL  IDEALS  181 

made  in  the  story  are  with  the  intention  of 
pitting  against  the  villainy  of  an  aristocratic 
seducer  of  the  lowest  type  a  bourgeois  young 
man,  who  has  been  in  love  with  the  betrayed 
woman,  and  who  when  he  finds  out  that  it 
was  this  man,  his  friend,  who  had  stood  be- 
tween them,  does  not  swerve  from  his  loyalty 
and  truth  to  her,  and  in  the  end  avenges  her 
by  killing  the  aristocratic  villain.  The  young 
man  is  betrothed  to  a  girl  he  cares  nothing 
for,  the  woman  has  married  a  man  she  cares 
nothing  for.  All  is  of  no  moment  in  the 
presence  of  a  genuine  loyal  emotion  which 
shows  itself  capable  of  a  life  of  devotion  with 
no  thought  of  reward. 

Browning  has  nowhere  translated  into  more 
noble  action  the  love  of  a  man  than  in  the 
passage  where  the  hero  of  the  story  gives  him- 
self unselfishly  to  the  woman  who  has  been 
so  deeply  wronged: 

"Take  heart  of  hers, 

And  give  her  hand  of  mine  with  no  more  heart 
Than  now,  you  see  upon  this  brow  I  strike! 
What  atom  of  a  heart  do  I  retain 
Not  all  yours  ?    Dear,  you  know  it  !    Easily 
May  she  accord  me  pardon  when  I  place 
My  brow  beneath  her  foot,  if  foot  so  deign, 
Since  uttermost  indignity  is  spared  — 
Mere  marriage  and  no  love!    And  all  this  time 
Not  one  word  to  the  purpose!    Are  you  free? 


182   BROWNING  AND  HIS  CENTURY 

Only  wait!  only  let  me  serve  —  deserve 

Where  you  appoint  and  how  you  see  the  good ! 

I  have  the  will  —  perhaps  the  power  —  at  least 

Means'that  have  power  against  the  world.    Fortune  — 

Take  my  whole  life  for  your  experiment! 

If  you  are  bound  —  in  marriage,  say  —  why,  still, 

Still,  sure,  there's  something  for  a  friend  to  do, 

Outside?    A  mere  well-wisher,  understand! 

Til  sit,  my  life  long,  at  your  gate,  you  know, 

Swing  it  wide  open  to  let  you  and  him 

Pass  freely,  —  and  you  need  not  look,  much  less 

Fling  me  a  '  Thank  you!  —  are  you  there,  old  friend  ?' 

Don't  say  that  even:  I  should  drop  like  shot! 

So  I  feel  now,  at  least:  some  day,  who  knows? 

After  no  end  of  weeks  and  months  and  years 

You  might  smile!     '/  belicrc  you  did  your  best! ' 

And  that  shall  make  my  heart  leap  —  leap  such  leap 

As  lands  the  feet  in  Heaven  to  wait  you  there! 

Ah,  there's  just  one  thing  more!    How  pale  you  look! 

Why?    Are  you  angry?    If  there's  after  all, 

Worst  come  to  worst  —  if  still  there  somehow  be 

The  shame  —  I  said  was  no  shame,  —  none,  I  swear!  — 

In  that  case,  if  my  hand  and  what  it  holds,  — 

My  name,  —  might  be  your  safeguard  now,  —  at  once  — 

Why,  here's  the  hand  —  you  have  the  heart. " 

The  genuine  lovers  in  Browning's  gallery 
will  occur  to  every  reader  of  Browning :  lovers 
who  are  not  deterred  by  obstacles,  like 
Norbert,  lovers  like  Miranda,  devoted  to  a 
woman  with  a  "past";  like  the  lover  in  "One 
Way  of  Love,"  who  still  can  say,  "Those  who 
win  heaven,  blest  are  they."  Sometimes  there 


SOCIAL  IDEALS  183 

is  a  problem  to  be  solved,  sometimes  not. 
Whenever  there  is  a  problem,  however,  it  is 
solved  by  Browning  on  the  side  of  sincerity 
and  truth,  never  on  the  side  of  conven- 
tion. 

Take,  for  example,  "The  Statue  and  the 
Bust,"  which  many  have  considered  to 
uphold  an  immoral  standard  and  of  which 
its  defenders  declare  that  the  moral  point 
of  the  story  lies  not  in  the  fact  that  the 
lady  and  the  Duke  wished  to  elope  with 
each  other  but  that  they  never  had 
strength  enough  of  mind  to  do  so.  Con- 
sidering what  an  entirely  conventional  and 
loveless  marriage  this  of  the  lady  and  the 
Duke  evidently  was  we  cannot  suppose,  in  the 
light  of  Browning's  solution  of  similar  sit- 
uations, that  he  would  have  thought  it  any 
great  crime  if  the  Duke  and  the  lady  had 
eloped,  since  there  was  so  genuine  an  attrac- 
tion between  them.  But  he  does  word  his 
climax,  it  must  be  confessed,  in  a  way  to  leave 
a  loophole  of  doubt  on  the  subject  for  those 
who  do  not  like  to  be  scandalized  by  their 
Browning:  "Let  a  man  contend  to  the  utter- 
most for  his  life's  set  prize,  be  it  what  it 
will!" 

There  is  a  saving  grace  to  be  extracted 
from  the  last  line. 


184    BROWNING  AND  HIS  CENTURY 

" —  The  sin  I  impute  to  each  frustrate  ghost 
Is  —  the  unlit  lamp  and  the  ungirt  loin, 
Though  the  end  in  sight  was  a  vice,  I  say. " 

In  "The  Ring  and  the  Book,"  the  problem 
is  similar  to  that  in  the  "Inn  Album,"  ex- 
cept that  the  villain  in  the  case  is  the  lawful 
husband.  The  lover,  Caponsacchi,  under  dif- 
ferent conditions  demanding  that  he  shall 
not  give  the  slightest  expression  to  his  love, 
rises  to  a  reverential  height  which  even  some 
of  Browning's  readers  seem  to  doubt  as  pos- 
sible. Caponsacchi  is,  however,  too  much 
under  the  spell  of  Catholic  theology  to  see  the 
mystical  meaning  of  the  love  which  he  ac- 
knowledges in  his  own  soul  for  Pompilia.  In 
this  poem  it  is  Pompilia  who  is  given  the 
divine  vision.  If  I  may  resay  what  I  have 
said  in  another  connection,*  there  is  no 
moral  struggle  in  Pompilia's  short  life  such 
as  that  in  Caponsacchi's.  Both  were  alike 
in  the  fact  that  up  to  a  certain  point  in  their 
lives  their  full  consciousness  was  unawakened: 
hers  slept,  through  innocence  and  ignorance; 
his,  in  spite  of  knowledge,  through  lack  of 
aspiration.  She  was  rudely  awakened  by 
suffering;  he  by  the  sudden  revelation  of 
a  possible  ideal.  Therefore,  while  for  him, 
conscious  of  his  past  failures,  a  struggle 

*See  Introduction  to  "Ring  and  Book" —  Camberwell  Browning. 


SOCIAL  IDEALS  185 

begins:  for  her,  conscious  of  no  failure  in  her 
duty,  which  she  had  always  followed  accord- 
ing to  her  light,  there  simply  continues  duty 
according  to  the  new  light.  Neither  arch- 
bishop nor  friendly  "smiles  and  shakes  of 
head'  could  weaken  her  conviction  that, 
being  estranged  in  soul  from  her  husband,  her 
attitude  toward  him  was  inevitable.  No 
qualms  of  conscience  troubled  her  as  to  her 
inalienable  right  to  fly  from  him.  That  she 
submitted  as  long  as  she  did  was  only  because 
no  one  could  be  found  to  aid  her.  And  how 
quick  and  certain  her  defence  of  Caponsacchi, 
threatened  by  Guido,  when  he  overtakes 
them  at  the  Inn!  As  she  thinks  over  it 
calmly  afterward,  she  makes  no  apology, 
but  justifies  her  action  as  the  voice  of  God. 

"If  I  sinned  so  —  never  obey  voice  more. 
O,  the  Just  and  Terrible,  who  bids  us  'Bear.' 
Not —  'Stand  by;  bear  to  see  my  angels  bear!'" 

The  gossip  over  her  flight  with  Caponsacchi 
does  not  trouble  her  as  it  does  him.  He  saved 
her  in  her  great  need;  the  supposition  that 
their  motives  for  flight  had  any  taint  of 
impurity  in  them  is  too  puerile  to  be  given  a 
thought,  yet  with  the  same  sublime  certainty 
of  the  right,  characteristic  of  her,  she  ac- 
knowledges, at  the  end,  her  love  for  Capon- 


186   BROWNING  AND  HIS  CENTURY 

sacchi,  and  looks  for  its  fulfilment  in  the 
future  when  marriage  shall  be  an  inter- 
penetration  of  souls  that  know  themselves 
into  one.  Having  attained  so  great  a  good 
she  can  wish  none  of  the  evil  she  has  suffered 
undone.  She  goes  a  step  farther.  Not  only 
does  she  accept  her  own  suffering  for  the  sake 
of  the  final  supreme  good  to  herself,  but  she 
feels  assured  that  good  will  fall  at  last  to  those 
who  worked  the  evil. 

In  her  absolute  certainty  of  her  realization 
of  an  unexpressed  love  in  a  future  existence, 
she  is  only  equaled  in  Browning's  poetry  by 
the  speaker  in  "Beautiful  Evelyn  Hope  is 
dead." 

That  Browning's  belief  in  the  mystical 
quality  of  personal  love  never  changed  is 
shown  by  the  fact  that  near  the  end  of  his 
life,  in  the  "  Parleying  "  with  Daniel  Bartoli, 
he  treats  a  love  romance  based  upon  fact  in 
a  way  to  emphasize  this  same  truth  which  so 
constantly  appears  in  his  earlier  work.  The 
lady  in  this  case,  who  is  of  the  people,  having 
been  offered  a  bribe  by  the  King  which  will 
mean  the  dishonoring  of  herself  and  her 
husband,  and  which  if  she  does  not  accept 
will  mean  her  complete  separation  from  her 
husband,  instantly  decides  against  the  bribe. 
She  prefers  love  in  spirit  in  a  convent  to  the 


SOCIAL  IDEALS  187 

accepting  of  the  King's  promise  that  she  will 
be  made  much  of  in  court  if  she  will  sign  a 
paper  agreeing  that  her  husband  shall  at  once 
cede  his  dukedoms  to  the  King.  She  ex- 
plains her  attitude  to  the  Duke,  who  hesitates 
in  his  decision,  whereupon  she  leaves  and 
saves  his  honor  for  him,  but  his  inability 
to  decide  at  once  upon  the  higher  ground  of 
spiritual  love  reveals  to  her  the  inadequacy 
of  his  love  as  compared  with  her  own  and 
kills  her  love  for  him.  She  later,  however, 
marries  a  man  who  was  only  a  boy  of  ten  at 
the  time  of  this  episode,  and  their  life  to- 
gether was  a  dream  of  happiness.  But  she 
dies  and  the  devoted  husband  becomes  a  man 
of  the  world  again.  The  Duke,  however, 
has  a  streak  of  genuineness  in  his  nature  after 
all.  Although  carried  away  by  the  charms 
of  a  bold,  black-eyed,  tall  creature,  a  devel- 
opment in  keeping  with  the  nature  of  the 
Duke  in  the  true  story,  Browning  is  equal  to 
the  occasion,  and  makes  him  declare  that  the 
real  man  in  him  is  dead  and  is  still  faithful 
to  the  old  love.  All  she  has  is  his  ghost. 
Some  day  his  soul  will  again  be  called  into  life 
by  his  ideal  love. 

The  poet  frequently  expresses  a  doubt  of 
man's  power  to  be  faithful  to  the  letter  in 
case  of  a  wife's  death.  "Any  wife  to  any 


188   BROWNING  AND  HIS  CENTURY 

husband"  reveals  that  feeling  as  it  comes  to 
a  woman.  The  poet's  answer  to  this  doubt 
is  invariably,  that  where  the  love  was  true 
other  attraction  is  a  makeshift  by  which  a 
desolate  life  is  made  tolerable,  or,  as  in  "Fifine 
at  the  Fair,"  an  ephemeral  indulgence  in  pleas- 
ure which  does  not  touch  the  reality  of  the 
spiritual  love. 

Browning  was  well  aware  that  the  ordinary 
woman  had  a  stronger  sense  of  the  eternal  in 
love  than  the  ordinary  man.  In  relation  to 
the  Duke  in  the  poem  previously  mentioned 
he  remarks: 

"One  leans  to  like  the  duke,  too;  up  we'll  patch 

Some  sort  of  saintship  for  him  —  not  to  match 

Hers  —  but  man's  best  and  woman's  worst  amount 

So  nearly  to  the  same  thing,  that  we  count 

In  man  a  miracle  of  faithfulness 

If,  while  unfaithful  somewhat,  he  lay  stress 

On  the  main  fact  that  love,  when  love  indeed, 

Is  wholly  solely  love  from  first  to  last  — 

Truth  —  all  the  rest  a  lie. " 

It  may  be  said  that  all  this  is  the  romantic 
love  about  which  the  poets  have  always  sung, 
and  has  as  much  existence  in  real  life  as  the 
ideal  of  disinterested  helpfulness  to  love- 
lorn damsels  sung  about  in  the  days  of 
chivalry.  True,  others  have  sung  of  the 
exaltation  and  the  immortality  of  love,  and 


SOCIAL  IDEALS  189 

few  have  been  those  who  have  found  it,  but 
nowhere  has  the  distinctively  human  side 
been  touched  with  such  reverence  as  in 
Browning.  It  is  not  Beatrice  translated  into 
a  divine  personage  to  be  adored  by  a  wor- 
shipping devotee,  but  a  wholly  human  woman 
who  loves  and  is  loved,  who  touches  divinity 
in  Browning's  mind.  Human  love  is  then 
not  an  impossible  ideal  of  which  he  writes  in 
poetic  language  existing  only  in  the  realm 
of  fancy;  it  is  a  living  religion,  bringing  those 
who  love  nearer  to  God  through  the  exalta- 
tion of  their  feeling  than  any  other  revelation 
of  the  human  soul.  Other  states  of  conscious- 
ness reveal  to  humanity  the  existence  of  the 
absolute,  but  this  gives  a  premonition  of  what 
divine  love  may  have  in  store  for  the  aspiring 
soul. 

In  holding  to  such  an  ideal  of  love  as  this 
Browning  has  ranged  himself  entirely  apart 
from  the  main  tendencies  of  thought  of  the 
century,  on  the  relations  of  men  and  women, 
which  have,  on  the  one  hand,  been  wholly 
conventional,  marriage  being  a  contract  under 
the  law  binding  for  life  except  in  cases  of 
definite  breaches  of  conduct,  and  under  the 
Church  of  affection  which  is  binding  only  for 
life ;  and  have,  on  the  other  hand,  gone  extreme 
lengths  in  the  advocacy  of  entire  freedom  in 


190   BROWNING  AND  HIS  CENTURY 

the  relations  of  the  sexes.  The  first  degrades 
love  by  making  it  too  much  a  matter  of  law, 
the  second  by  making  it  an  ephemeral  passion 
from  which  almost  everything  truly  beautiful 
in  the  relationship  of  two  human  beings  is,  of 
necessity,  eliminated. 

To  either  of  these  extreme  factions  Brown- 
ing's attitude  is  equally  incomprehensible. 
The  first  cries  out  against  his  liberalness,  the 
second,  declaring  that  human  emotion  should 
be  untrammeled  by  either  Church,  law  or 
God,  would  find  him  a  pernicious  influence 
against  freedom;  there  are,  however,  many 
shades  of  opinion  between  the  two  extremes 
which  would  feel  sympathy  with  his  ideals  in 
one  or  more  directions. 

The  chief  difficulty  in  the  acceptance  of  the 
ideal  for  most  people  is  that  they  have  not 
yet  developed  to  the  plane  where  feeling 
comes  to  them  with  the  intensity,  the  con- 
centration, the  depth  or  the  constancy  that 
brings  with  it  the  sense  of  revelation.  For 
many  people  law  or  the  Church  is  absolutely 
necessary  to  preserve  such  feeling  as  they  are 
capable  of  from  dissipating  itself  in  shallow 
sentimentalism;  while  one  or  the  other  will 
always  be  necessary  in  some  form  because 
love  has  its  social  as  well  as  its  personal 
aspect. 


SOCIAL  IDEALS  191 

Yet  the  law  and  the  Church  should  both 
allow  sufficient  freedom  for  the  breaking  of  re- 
lations from  which  all  sincerity  has  departed, 
even  though  humanity  as  a  whole  has  not 
yet  and  probably  will  not  for  many  ages 
arrive  at  Browning's  conception  of  human 
love. 

Truth  to  one's  own  highest  vision  in  love 
being  a  cardinal  principle  with  Browning,  it 
follows  that  truth  to  one's  nature  in  any  direc- 
tion is  desirable.  He  even  carries  this  doctrine 
of  truth  to  the  individual  nature  so  far  as  to 
base  upon  it  an  apology  for  the  most  un- 
mitigated villain  he  has  portrayed,  Guido,  and 
to  put  this  apology  into  the  mouth  of  the 
person  he  had  most  deeply  wronged,  Pom- 
pilia.  With  exquisite  vision  she,  even,  can  say : 

"But  where  will  God  be  absent!    In  his  face 
Is  light,  but  in  his  shadow  healing  too : 
Let  Guido  touch  the  shadow  and  be  healed! 
And  as  my  presence  was  unfortunate,  — 
My  earthly  good,  temptation  and  a  snare,  — 
Nothing  about  me  but  drew  somehow  down 
His  hate  upon  me,  —  somewhat  so  excused 
Therefore,  since  hate  was  thus  the  truth  of  him,  — 
May  my  evanishment  for  evermore 
Help  further  to  relieve  the  heart  that  cast 
Such  object  of  its  natural  loathing  forth! 
So  he  was  made;  he  nowise  made  himself: 
I  could  not  love  him,  but  his  mother  did. " 


192   BROWNING  AND  HIS  CENTURY 

It  is  this  notion  that  every  nature  must 
express  its  own  truth  which  underlies  a  poem 
like  "Fifine  at  the  Fair."  Through  express- 
ing the  truth  of  itself,  and  so  grasping  at  half 
truths,  even  at  the  false,  it  finally  reaches  a 
higher  truth.  A  nature  like  Guide's  was  not 
born  with  a  faculty  for  development.  He 
simply  had  to  live  out  his  own  hate.  The 
man  in  "Fifine"  had  the  power  of  perceiving 
an  ideal,  but  not  the  power  of  living  up  to  it 
without  experimentation  upon  lower  planes 
of  living,  probably  the  most  common  type 
of  man  to-day.  There  are  others  like  Norbert 
or  Mertoun,  in  whom  the  ideal  truth  is  the 
real  truth  of  their  natures  and  for  whom  life 
means  the  constant  expansion  of  this  ideal 
truth  within  them.  In  many  of  the  varying 
types  of  men  and  women  portrayed  by  Brown- 
ing there  is  the  recognition  of  the  possibility 
of  psychic  development  either  by  means  of 
experience  or  by  sudden  intuitions,  and  if, 
as  hi  the  case  of  Guido,  there  is  no  develop- 
ment in  this  life,  there  is  hope  in  a  future 
existence  in  a  universe  ruled  by  a  God  of  love. 

In  his  views  upon  human  character  and  its 
possibilities  of  development  Browning  is,  of 
course,  in  touch  with  the  scientific  views  on 
the  subject  which  filled  the  air  in  all  later 
nineteenth-century  thought,  changing  the  or- 


SOCIAL  IDEALS  193 

thodox  ideal  of  a  static  humanity  born  in 
sin  and  only  to  be  saved  by  belief  in  certain 
dogmas  to  that  of  a  humanity  born  to  develop; 
changing  the  notion  that  sin  was  a  terrible 
and  absolutely  defined  entity,  against  which 
every  soul  had  ceaselessly  to  war,  into  the 
notion  that  sin  is  a  relative  evil,  consequent 
upon  lack  of  development,  which,  as  the 
human  soul  advances  on  its  path,  led  by  its 
inborn  consciousness  of  the  divine  to  be 
attained,  will  gradually  disappear 

But  the  evil  which  results  from  this  lack  of 
development  in  individuals  to  other  individu- 
als, and  to  society  at  large,  brings  a  problem 
which  as  we  have  already  seen  in  the  first 
chapter  is  not  so  easy  of  solution.  Yet  Brown- 
ing solves  it,  for  is  it  not  through  the  combat 
with  this  evil  that  the  soul  is  given  its  real 
opportunity  for  development?  Pain  and  suf- 
fering give  rise  to  the  thirst  for  happiness  and 
joy,  and  through  the  arousing  of  sympathy 
and  pity,  the  desire  that  others  shall  have 
happiness  and  joy,  therefore  to  be  despairing 
and  pessimistic  about  evil  or  to  wish  for  its 
immediate  annihilation  would  really  be  sui- 
cidal to  the  best  interests  of  the  human  race; 
nay,  he  even  goes  farther  than  this,  as  is  hinted 
in  one  of  his  last  poems,  "Rephan,"  and 
imagines  that  any  other  state  than  one  of 


194   BROWNING  AND  HIS  CENTURY 

flux  between  good  and  evil  would  be  monoto- 
nous: 

"Startle  me  up,  by  an  Infinite 
Discovered  above  and  below  me  —  height 
And  depth  alike  to  attract  my  flight, 

"Repel  my  descent:  by  hate  taught  love. 
Oh,  gain  were  indeed  to  see  above 
Supremacy  ever  —  to  move,  remove, 

"Not  reach  —  aspire  yet  never  attain 
To  the  object  aimed  at!     Scarce  in  vain,  — 
As  each  stage  I  left  nor  touched  again. 

"To  suffer,  did  pangs  bring  the  loved  one  bliss, 
Wring  knowledge  from  ignorance:  —  just  for  this  — 
To  add  one  drop  to  a  love  —  abyss! 

"Enough:  for  you  doubt,  you  hope,  O  men, 
You  fear,  you  agonize,  die:  what  then? 
Is  an  end  to  your  life's  work  out  of  ken? 

"Have  you  no  assurance  that,  earth  at  end, 
Wrong  will  prove  right?     Who  made  shall  mend 
In  the  higher  sphere  to  which  yearnings  tend?" 

In  his  attitude  toward  the  existence  of 
evil  Browning  takes  issue  with  Carlyle,  as 
already  noted  in  the  second  chapter.  Carlyle, 
as  Browning  represents  him,  cannot  reconcile 
the  existence  of  evil  with  beneficent  and 
omniscient  power.  He  makes  the  opponent, 
who  is  an  echo  of  Carlyle  in  the  argument  in 
"Bernard  de  Mandeville,"  exclaim: 


SOCIAL  IDEALS  195 

"Where's 
Knowledge,  where  power  and  will  in  evidence 

"Pis  Man's-play  merely !     Craft  foils  rectitude, 

Malignity  defeats  beneficence, 

And  grant,  at  very  last  of  all,  the  feud 

'Twixt  good  and  evil  ends,  strange  thoughts  intrude 

Though  good  be  garnered  safely  and  good's  foe 

Bundled  for  burning.     Thoughts  steal  even  so  — 

Why  grant  tares  leave  to  thus  o'ertop,  o'ertower 

Their  field-mate,  boast  the  stalk  and  flaunt  the  flower, 

Triumph  one  sunny  minute?" 

No  attempt  must  be  made  to  show  God's 
reason  for  allowing  evil.  Any  such  attempt 
will  fail.  This  passage  comes  as  near  as  any 
in  Browning  to  a  plunge  into  the  larger  social 
questions  which  during  the  nineteenth  century 
have  come  more  and  more  to  the  front,  and  is 
an  index  of  just  where  the  poet  stood  in  rela- 
tion to  the  social  movements  of  the  century's 
end.  His  gaze  was  so  centered  upon  the 
individual  and  the  power  of  the  individual 
to  work  out  his  own  salvation  and  the  need  of 
evil  in  the  process  that  his  philosophical 
attitude  toward  evil  quite  overtops  the  mili- 
tant interest  in  overcoming  it. 

Carlyle,  on  the  other  hand,  saw  the  immense 
evil  of  the  social  conditions  in  England,  and 
raged  and  stormed  against  them,  but  could 
see  no  light  by  which  evil  could  be  turned 
into  good.  He  little  realized  that  his  own 


storming  at  the  ineptitude,  the  imbecility, 
the  fool-ness  of  society,  and  his  own  despair 
over  the,  to  him,  unaccountable  evils  of  exist- 
ence, were  in  themselves  a  positive  good 
growing  out  of  the  evil.  Though  he  was  not 
to  suggest  practical  means  for  leading  the 
masses  out  of  bondage,  he  was  to  call  atten- 
tion in  trumpet  tones  to  the  fact  that  the 
bondage  existed.  By  so  doing  he  was  taking 
a  first  step  or  rather  drawing  aside  the  cur- 
tain and  revealing  the  dire  necessity  that 
steps  should  be  taken  and  taken  soon.  While 
Carlyle  was  militantly  shouting  against  evil 
to  some  purpose  which  would  later  mean 
militant  action  against  it,  Browning  was 
settling  in  his  own  mind  just  what  relation 
evil  should  hold  to  good  in  the  scheme  of  the 
universe,  and  writing  a  poem  to  tell  why  he 
was  a  liberal.  In  fine,  Carlyle  was  opening 
the  way  toward  the  socialism  of  the  latter 
part  of  the  century,  while  Browning  was  still 
found  in  the  camp  of  what  the  socialist  of  to- 
day calls  the  middle-class  individualist. 

Liberalism,  which  had  taken  on  social  con- 
ditions to  the  point  through  legislation  where 
every  man  was  free  to  be  a  property  holder 
if  he  could  manage  to  become  one,  and  to 
amass  wealth,  left  out  of  consideration  the 
fact  that  he  never  could  be  free  as  long  as  he 


WILLIAM  MORRIS 


SOCIAL  IDEALS  197 

had  to  compete  with  every  other  man  in  the 
state  to  get  these  things.  Hence  the  move- 
ment of  the  working  classes  to  gain  freedom 
by  substituting  for  a  competitive  form  of 
society  a  cooperative  form.  Great  names  in 
literature  and  art  have  helped  toward  the  on- 
coming of  this  movement.  Carlyle  had  railed 
at  the  millions  of  the  English  nation,  "mostly 
fools;"  Ruskin  had  bemoaned  the  enthrone- 
ment of  ugliness  as  the  result  of  the  industrial 
conditions;  Matthew  Arnold  had  proposed  a 
panacea  for  the  ills  of  the  social  condition  in 
the  bringing  about  of  social  equality  through 
culture,  and,  best  of  all,  William  Morris  had 
not  only  talked  but  acted. 

To  any  student  of  social  movements  to-day, 
whether  he  has  been  drawn  into  the  swirl  of 
socialistic  propaganda  or  whether  he  is  still 
comfortably  sitting  in  his  parlor  feeling  an  in- 
tellectual sympathy  but  no  emotional  call  to 
leave  his  parlor  and  be  up  and  doing,  Morris  ap- 
pears as  the  most  interesting  figure  of  the  cen- 
tury. The  pioneers  in  the  nineteenth-century 
movement  toward  socialism  in  England,  unless 
we  except  the  social  enthusiasm  of  a  Shelley  or 
a  Blake,  were  Owen  and  Maurice.  Owen  was 
that  remarkable  anomaly,  a  self-made  man 
who  had  gained  his  wealth  because  of  the  new 
industrial  order  inaugurated  by  the  invention 


198   BROWNING  AND  HIS  CENTURY 

of  machinery,  who  yet  could  look  at  the 
circumstances  so  fortuitous  for  him  in  an 
impersonal  manner,  and  realize  that  what 
had  put  a  silver  spoon  into  his  own  mouth 
was  taking  away  even  pewter  spoons  from 
other  men's  mouths.  Although  he  was  really 
in  love  with  the  new  order  of  machine  produc- 
tion, he  realized  what  many  to-day  fail  to  see, 
that  machine  production  organized  for  the 
benefit  of  private  persons  would  most  assur- 
edly mean  the  poverty  and  the  degradation 
of  the  workers.  He  did  not  stop  here,  how- 
ever, but  spent  his  vast  fortune  in  trying 
to  make  the  conditions  of  the  workingmen 
better.  In  the  estimation  of  socialists  to-day 
his  work  was  of  a  very  high  order,  "not  mere 
utopianism."  It  bore  no  similarity  to  the 
romantic  dreams  of  poets  who  saw  visions  of 
a  perfect  society  regardless  of  the  fact  that  a 
perfect  society  cannot  suddenly  blossom  from 
conditions  of  appalling  misery  and  degrada- 
tion. Owen  was  a  practical  business  man. 
He  knew  all  the  ins  and  outs  of  the  industrial 
regime,  and  consequently  he  had  a  practical 
program,  not  a  dream,  which  he  wished  to 
see  carried  out.  Accounts  of  the  conditions 
of  the  workers  at  that  time  are  heartrending. 
Everywhere  the  same  tale  of  abject  poverty, 
ignorance,  and  oppression  in  field  and  factory, 


SOCIAL  IDEALS  199 

long  hours  of  labor  and  dear  food.  To  bring 
help  to  these  downtrodden  people  was  the 
burning  desire  of  Robert  Owen  and  his 
followers.  His  efforts  were  not  rewarded  by 
that  success  which  they  deserved,  his  failure 
being  a  necessary  concomitant  of  the  fact 
that  even  a  practical  program  for  betterment 
cannot  suddenly  take  effect  owing  to  the 
inevitable  inertia  of  any  long-established  con- 
ditions. In  showing  the  causes  which  kept 
him  from  the  full  accomplishment  of  his 
ideals,  in  spite  of  his  genuine  practicalness, 
Brougham  Villiers,  the  recent  historian  of 
the  socialist  movement  in  England,  says  he 
attempted  too  much  "to  influence  the  workers 
from  without,  trying,  of  course  vainly,  to 
induce  the  governing  classes  to  interest  them- 
selves in  the  work  of  social  reform.  Yet  it  is 
difficult  to  see  what  else  he  could  have  done 
at  the  time.  We  have  already  shown  how 
utterly  disorganized  the  working  classes  were, 
how  incapable,  indeed,  of  any  organization. 
They  were  also  destitute  of  political  power, 
and  miserably  underpaid.  What  could  they 
do  to  help  themselves?  Help,  if  it  was  to 
come  at  all,  must  come  from  the  only  people 
who  then  had  the  power,  if  they  only  had 
the  will,  to  accord  it,  and  to  them,  at  first, 
Robert  Owen  appealed.  Later,  he  turned  to 


200   BROWNING  AND  HIS  CENTURY 

the  people,  and  for  them  indeed  his  work  was 
not  utterly  wasted,  though  generations  were 
to  pass  before  the  full  effect  of  it  could  be 
seen." 

However  abortive  his  attempts  to  gain  polit- 
ical sympathy  for  his  socialist  program,  and 
in  spite  of  the  fact  that  socialist  agitation 
came  to  a  standstill  in  England  with  the 
defeat  of  the  somewhat  chaotic  socialism  of 
the  Chartists,  it  cannot  be  doubted  that  his 
efforts  influenced  the  political  reformers  who 
were  to  take  up  one  injustice  after  another 
and  fight  for  its  melioration  until  the  working 
classes  were  at  least  brought  to  a  plane 
where  they  could  begin  to  organize  and 
develop  toward  the  still  higher  plane  where 
they  could  themselves  take  their  own  salva- 
tion in  hand. 

Another  man  who  did  much  to  bring  the 
workingman's  cause  into  prominence  was 
Maurice,  who  emphasized  the  Christian  aspect 
of  the  movement.  He  was  an  excellent  sup- 
plement to  Owen,  whose  liberal  views  on 
religion  militated  in  some  quarters  against  an 
acceptance  of  his  humane  views  in  regard  to 
workingmen. 

Notwithstanding  the  personal  strength  of 
these  two  men  they  failed  not  only  in  the 
practical  attainment  of  their  object,  but  their 


SOCIAL  IDEALS  201 

ideas  on  socialism  did  not  even  wedge  itself  into 
the  thought  consciousness  of  the  Englishmen. 

The  men  who  did  more  than  any  one  else 
to  awaken  the  sleeping  English  con- 
sciousness were  Carlyle,  Ruskin,  Arnold  and 
Morris.  Of  these  Morris  held  a  position 
midway  between  the  old-fashioned  dreamer 
of  dreams  and  the  new-fashioned  hustling 
political  socialist,  who  now  sends  his  repre- 
sentatives to  Parliament  and  has  his  "say" 
in  the  national  affairs  of  the  country. 

Being  a  poet,  he  could,  of  course,  dream 
dreams,  and  one  of  these,  "The  Dream  of 
John  Ball, "  puts  the  case  of  the  toilers  in  a 
form  at  once  so  convincing  and  so  full  of 
divine  pity  that  it  does  not  seem  possible  it 
could  be  read  even  by  the  most  hardened  of 
trust  magnates  without  making  him  see  how 
unjust  has  been  the  distribution  of  this  world's 
goods  through  the  making  of  one  man  do  the 
work  of  many:  "In  days  to  come  one  man 
shall  do  the  work  of  a  hundred  men  —  yea, 
of  a  thousand  or  more:  and  this  is  the  shift 
of  mastership  that  shall  make  many  masters 
and  many  rich  men."  This  is  a  riddle  which 
John  Ball  cannot  grasp  at  once,  and  when  it 
is  explained  to  him  he  is  still  more  mystified 
at  the  result. 

"Thou  hast  seen  the  weaver  at  his  loom: 


202   BROWNING  AND  HIS  CENTURY 

think  how  it  should  be  if  he  sit  no  longer  before 
the  web  and  cast  the  shuttle  and  draw  home 
the  sley,  but  if  the  shed  open  of  itself,  speed 
through  it  as  swift  as  the  eye  can  follow,  and 
the  sley  come  home  of  itself,  and  the  weaver 
standing  by  ...  looking  to  half  a  dozen 
looms  and  bidding  them  what  to  do.  And  as 
with  the  weaver  so  with  the  potter,  and  the 
smith,  and  every  worker  in  metals,  and  all 
other  crafts,  that  it  shall  be  for  them  looking 
on  and  tending,  as  with  the  man  that  sitteth 
in  the  cart  while  the  horse  draws.  Yea,  at 
last  so  shall  it  be  even  with  those  who  are 
mere  husbandmen;  and  no  longer  shall  the 
reaper  fare  afield  in  the  morning  with  his 
hook  over  his  shoulder,  and  smite  and  bind 
and  smite  again  till  the  sun  is  down  and  the 
moon  is  up;  but  he  shall  draw  a  thing  made 
by  men  into  the  field  with  one  or  two  horses, 
and  shall  say  the  word  and  the  horses  shall 
go  up  and  down,  and  the  thing  shall  reap 
and  gather  and  bind,  and  do  the  work  of  many 
men.  Imagine  all  this  hi  thy  mind  if  thou 
canst,  at  least  as  ye  may  imagine  a  tale  of 
enchantment  told  by  a  minstrel,  and  then 
tell  me  what  shouldst  thou  deem  that  the 
life  of  men  would  be  amidst  all  this,  men 
such  as  these  of  the  township  here,  or  the  men 
of  the  Canterbury  guilds." 


SOCIAL  IDEALS  203 

And  John  Ball's  conclusion  is  that  things 
in  that  day  to  come  will  be  not  as  they  are 
but  as  they  ought  to  be.  With  irresistible 
logic  he  declares: 

"I  say  that  if  men  still  abide  men  as  I  have 
known  them,  and  unless  these  folk  of  England 
change  as  the  land  changeth  —  and  forsooth 
of  the  men,  for  good  and  for  evil,  I  can  think  no 
other  than  I  think  now,  or  behold  them  other 
than  I  have  known  them  and  loved  them  — 
I  say  if  the  men  be  still  men,  what  will  happen 
except  that  there  should  be  all  plenty  in  the 
land,  and  not  one  poor  man  therein  .  .  . 
for  there  would  then  be  such  abundance  of 
good  things,  that,  as  greedy  as  the  lords 
might  be,  there  would  be  enough  to  satisfy 
their  greed  and  yet  leave  good  living  for  all 
who  labored  with  their  hands;  so  that  these 
should  labor  for  less  than  now,  and  they  would 
have  time  to  learn  knowledge,"  and  he  goes 
on,  "  take  part  in  the  making  of  laws." 

But  Morris  was  not  the  man  to  dream, 
merely.  Though  he  did  not  trouble  himself 
about  the  doctrinaire  side  of  socialism,  he 
preached  it  constantly  from  the  human  side 
and  from  the  artistic  side.  While  some 
socialist  writers  make  us  feel  that  socialism 
might  possibly  only  be  Gradgrind  in  another 
guise,  he  makes  us  feel  that  peace  and  plenty 


204   BROWNING  AND  HIS  CENTURY 

and  loveliness  would  attend  upon  the  sons 
and  daughters  of  socialism.  As  one  of  his 
many  admirers  says  of  him:  "He  was  an 
out-and-out  Communist  because  of  the  essen- 
tial sanity  of  a  mind  incapable  of  the  desire 
to  monopolize  anything  he  could  not  use." 

The  authoritarianism  of  the  Marxian  social- 
ists was  distasteful  to  him,  for,  to  quote  from 
the  same  admirer,  his  "  conception  of  socialism 
was  that  of  a  free  society,  based  on  the  simple 
rights  of  all  to  use  the  earth  and  anything 
in  it,  and  the  consequent  abolition  of  all 
competition  for  the  means  of  life."  His 
attitude  of  mind  on  these  points  led  him  to 
break  away  from  the  Social  Democratic  Fed- 
eration, which,  with  its  political  program, 
was  distasteful  to  Morris's  more  purely  social 
feeling,  and  found  the  Socialist  League.  This 
emphasized  more  particularly  the  artistic 
side  of  socialism.  Morris  and  his  followers 
were  bent  upon  making  life  a  beautiful  thing 
as  well  as  a  comfortable  thing. 

According  to  all  accounts,  the  League  was 
not  as  great  a  force  in  the  development  of 
socialist  ideals  as  was  Morris  himself,  who 
inspired  such  men  as  Burne-Jones  and  Walter 
Crane  with  a  sympathy  in  the  new  ideals,  as 
well  as  multitudes  of  lesser  men  in  the  crowds 
that  gathered  to  listen  to  him  in  Waltham 


SOCIAL  IDEALS  205 

Green  or  in  some  other  like  open  place  of  a 
Sunday. 

Morris's  chief  contribution  to  the  growth 
of  the  cause  was  perhaps  his  own  business 
plant,  into  which  he  put  as  many  of  his 
ideals  for  the  betterment  of  the  workingmen's 
conditions  as  he  was  able  to  do  under  existing 
conditions.  Who  has  not  gloated  over  his 
exquisite  editions  of  Chaucer  and  the  like  — 
books  in  which  even  the  punctuation  marks 
are  a  delight  to  the  eye,  and  the  illustrations  as 
far  beyond  ordinary  illustrations  as  the  punc- 
tuation marks  are  beyond  ordinary  periods. 
If  anything  could  add  to  the  richness  of 
the  interior  it  is  the  contrasting  simplicity  of 
the  white  vellum  bindings,  and,  again,  if  there 
is  another  possible  touch  of  grace  —  a  gilding 
of  the  lily  —  what  could  better  fulfil  that 
purpose  than  the  outer  boxing  covered  with 
a  Morris  cotton  print!  The  critical  may 
object  that  these  Morris  editions  are  so 
expensive  that  none  but  millionaire  biblio- 
philes can  have  many  of  them.  How  many 
of  us  have  even  seen  them  except  in  such 
collections!  And  how  many  of  his  workmen 
are  able  to  share  in  this  product  of  their 
labor  to  any  greater  extent  than  the  product 
of  labor  is  usually  shared  in  by  its  producers, 
may  be  asked. 


206   BROWNING  AND  HIS  CENTURY 

Though  we  are  obliged  to  answer  that  the 
workmen  probably  do  not  have  the  Morris 
books  in  their  own  libraries,  they  yet  have 
the  joy  of  making  these  beautiful  books 
under  conditions  of  happy  workmanship  - 
that  is,  they  are  skilled  craftsmen,  who  have 
been  trained  in  an  apprenticeship,  who  are 
asked  to  work  only  eight  hours  a  day,  who 
receive  higher  wages  than  other  workmen  and, 
above  all,  who  have  the  stimulation  of  the 
presence  of  Morris,  himself,  working  among 
them. 

Morris's  enthusiasm  for  a  more  universally 
happy  and  beautiful  society  combined  with 
the  object  lesson  of  his  own  methods  in  con- 
ducting a  business  upon  genuinely  artistic 
principles  has  done  an  incalculable  amount 
in  spreading  the  gospel  of  socialism.  Still 
there  was  too  much  of  the  laissez  faire  atmos- 
phere about  his  attitude  for  it  to  bring  about 
any  marked  degree  of  progress. 

The  opinion  of  Mr.  William  Clarke  who  had 
many  conversations  with  Morris  on  the  sub- 
ject reveals  that,  after  all,  there  was  too 
much  of  the  poet  about  him  for  him  to  be  a 
really  practical  force  in  the  movement.  He 
writes: 

"It  is  not  easy  to  understand  how  Morris 
proposes  to  bring  about  the  condition  of  things 


SOCIAL  IDEALS  207 

he  looks  forward  to.  No  parliamentary  or 
municipal  methods,  no  reliance  upon  law- 
making  machinery,  an  abhorrence  of  every- 
thing that  smacks  of  *  polities':  it  all  seems 
very  impracticable  to  the  average  man,  and 
certainly  suggests  the  poet  rather  than  the 
man  of  affairs.  What  Morris  thinks  will 
really  happen  is,  I  should  say,  judging  from 
numerous  conversations  I  have  had  with  him, 
something  like  this:  Existing  society  is,  he 
thinks,  gradually,  but  with  increasing  momen- 
tum, disintegrating  through  its  own  rotten- 
ness. The  capitalist  system  of  production 
is  breaking  down  fast  and  is  compelled  to 
exploit  new  regions  in  Africa  and  other  parts, 
where  he  thinks  its  term  will  be  short. 
Economically,  socially,  morally,  politically, 
religiously,  civilization  is  becoming  bankrupt. 
Meanwhile  it  is  for  the  socialist  to  take 
advantage  of  this  disintegration  by  spreading 
discontent,  by  preaching  economic  truths,  and 
by  any  kind  of  demonstration  which  may 
harass  the  authorities  and  develop  among  the 
people  an  esprit  de  corps.  By  these  means  the 
people  will,  in  some  way  or  other,  be  ready  to 
take  up  the  industry  of  the  world  when  the 
capitalist  class  is  no  longer  able  to  direct  or 
control  it.  Morris  believes  less  in  a  violent 
revolution  than  he  did  and  thinks  that  work- 


208   BROWNING  AND  HIS  CENTURY 

men's  associations  and  labor  unions  form  a 
kind  of  means  between  brute  force  on  the  one 
hand  and  a  parliamentary  policy  on  the  other. 
He  does  not,  however,  share  the  sanguine 
views  of  John  Burns  as  to  the  wonders  to  be 
accomplished  by  the  'new*  trades  unionism." 

The  practical  ineffectiveness  of  the  Morris 
socialism  in  spite  of  its  having  taken  some 
steps  in  the  direction  of  vital  activity  was  over- 
come by  the  next  socialist  body  which  came 
into  prominence  —  the  Fabian  Society,  in 
which  Bernard  Shaw  has  been  so  conspicuous 
a  figure. 

As  already  mentioned,  the  Fabians  are  not 
a  fighting  body,  but  a  solidly  educational 
body.  To  them  is  due  the  bringing  of  social- 
ism into  the  realm  of  political  economy,  and 
in  so  doing  they  have  striven  to  harmonize 
it  with  English  practical  political  methods. 
Besides  this,  they  have  done  a  vast  amount  of 
work  in  educating  public  opinion,  not  with 
the  view  to  immediately  converting  the 
English  nation  to  a  belief  in  the  changing 
of  the  present  order  into  one  wholly  socialistic, 
but  with  a  view  to  introducing  socialistic 
treatment  of  the  individual  problems  which 
arise  in  contemporary  politics. 

Their  campaign  of  education  was  conducted 
so  well  that  its  effects  were  soon  visible,  not 


JOHN  BURNS 


SOCIAL  IDEALS  209 

only  in  the  modification  of  public  opinion, 
but  upon  the  workingmen  themselves.  The 
method  was  simple  enough:  "If  any  public, 
especially  any  social,  question  came  to  the 
front,  the  Fabian  method  was  to  make  a 
careful  independent  study  of  the  matter,  and 
present  to  the  public,  in  a  penny  pamphlet, 
a  thoughtful  statement  of  the  case  and  some 
common  sense,  and  incidentally  socialistic, 
suggestions  for  a  solution."  Fabian  ideas 
were  thus  introduced  into  the  consciousness 
of  the  awakening  trades  unionists. 

It  has  been  objected  that  the  gain  was 
much  more  for  the  trades  unionists  than  for 
the  Fabians.  Their  one-time  eager  pupils 
have,  it  is  said,  progressed  beyond  their 
masters,  as  a  review  of  recent  socialistic 
tendencies  would  divulge  had  we  the  time  to 
follow  them  in  this  place.  However  that 
may  be,  the  great  fact  remains  that  the 
Fabians  have  done  more  than  any  other 
branch  of  socialists  to  bridge  over  the  distance 
between  what  the  English  writers  call  the 
middle-class  idealist  and  the  proletarian,  with 
the  result  that  the  proletarian  has  begun  to 
think  for  himself  and  to  translate  middle-class 
idealism  into  proletarian  realism. 

Socialism,  from  being  the  watch  word  of  the 
enthusiastic  revolutionary,  began  to  be  dis- 


210   BROWNING  AND  HIS  CENTURY 

cussed  in  every  intelligent  household  and  in 
every  debating  society.  This  enormous  growth 
in  public  sentiment  occurred  during  the  session 
of  the  Unionist  Parliament,  1886-92.  When 
this  Parliament  opened  there  was  hardly  any 
socialist  literature,  and  when  it  closed  every- 
body was  reading  Bellamy  and  the  "Fabian 
Essays,"  and  Sir  William  Harcourt  had  made 
his  memorable  remark:  "We  are  all  socialists 
now." 

The  gesticulating  and  bemoaning  idealists, 
the  Carlyles  and  the  Ruskins,  the  revolution- 
ary but  laissez  faire  prophets  like  Morris, 
who  believed  in  a  complete  change  but  not 
in  using  any  of  the  means  at  hand  to  bring 
about  that  change,  had  given  place  to  men 
like  Keir  Hardie  and  John  Burns,  who  had 
sprung  into  leadership  from  the  ranks  of  the 
workingmen  themselves,  and  who  were  to  be 
later  their  representatives  in  Parliament  when 
the  Independent  Labor  Party  came  into  exist- 
ence. All  this  had  been  done  by  that  group 
of  progressive  men,  long-headed  enough  to 
see  that  the  ideal  of  a  better  and  more  beau- 
tiful social  life  could  not  be  gained  except  by 
a  long  and  toilsome  process  of  education  and 
of  action  which  would  consciously  follow  the 
principles  of  growth  discovered  by  scientists 
to  obtain  in  all  unconscious  cosmic  and 


SOCIAL  IDEALS  211 

physical  development,  the  very  principle 
which  as  we  have  seen,  Browning  declared 
should  have  guided  his  hero  Sordello  long 
before  the  Fabian  socialists  came  into  exist- 
ence —  namely,  the  principle  of  evolution. 
That  their  methods  should  have  peacefully 
brought  about  the  conditions  where  it  was 
possible  to  form  an  Independent  Labor  Party, 
which  would  have  the  power  to  speak  and 
act  for  itself  instead  of  working  as  the  Fabians 
themselves  do  through  the  parties  already  in 
power,  shouts  aloud  for  the  wisdom  of  their 
policy.  And  is  there  not  still  plenty  of  work 
for  them  to  do  in  the  still  further  educating 
of  all  parties  toward  the  flowering  of  genuine 
democracy,  when  the  dreams  of  the  dreamer 
shall  have  become  actualities,  because  true 
and  not  spurious  ways  of  making  them  actual 
shall  have  been  worked  out  by  experience? 

This  remarkable  growth  in  social  ideals  was 
taking  place  during  the  ninth  decade  of  the 
century  and  the  last  decade  of  Browning's 
life.  Is  there  any  indication  in  his  later  work 
that  he  was  conscious  of  it?  There  is  certainly 
no  direct  evidence  in  his  work  that  he  pro- 
gressed any  farther  in  the  development  of 
democratic  ideals  than  we  find  in  the  liberal- 
ism of  such  a  parliamentary  leader  as  Mr. 
Gladstone,  while  in  that  poem  in  which  he 


BROWNING  AND  HIS  CENTURY 

considers  more  especially  than  in  any  other  the 
subject  of  better  conditions  for  the  people, 
"Sordello,"  he  distinctly  expresses  a  mood  of 
doubt  as  to  the  advisability  of  making  condi- 
tions too  easy  for  the  human  being,  who  needs 
the  hardships  and  ills  of  life  to  bring  his 
soul  to  perfection,  a  far  more  important 
thing  in  Browning's  eyes  than  to  live  com- 
fortably and  beautifully.  All  he  wishes  for 
the  human  being  is  the  fine  chance  to  make 
the  most  of  himself  spiritually.  The  socialist 
would  say  that  he  could  not  secure  the  chance 
to  do  this  except  in  a  society  where  the 
murderous  principle  of  competition  should 
give  way  to  that  of  cooperation.  With  this 
Browning  might  agree.  Indeed,  may  this 
not  have  been  the  very  principle  Sordello 
had  in  mind  as  something  revealed  to  him 
which  neither  Guelf  nor  Ghibelline  could  see, 
or  was  this  only  the  more  obvious  principle  of 
republican  as  opposed  to  monarchical  prin- 
ciple and  still  falling  under  an  individualistic 
conception  of  society? 

While  his  work  is  instinct  with  sympathy 
for  all  classes  and  conditions  of  men,  Browning 
does  not  feel  the  ills  of  life  with  the  intensity 
of  a  Carlyle,  nor  its  ugliness  with  the  grief 
of  a  Ruskin,  nor  yet  its  lack  of  culture  with 
the  priggishness  of  an  Arnold,  nor  would  he 


SOCIAL  IDEALS  213 

stand  in  open  spaces  and  preach  discontent 
to  the  masses  like  Morris.  Why?  Because 
he  from  the  first  was  made  wise  to  see  a  good 
in  evil,  a  hope  in  ill-success,  to  be  proud  of 
men's  fallacies,  their  half  reasons,  their  faint 
aspirings,  upward  tending  all  though  weak, 
the  lesson  learned  after  weary  experiences  of 
life  by  Paracelsus.  His  thought  was  centered 
upon  the  worth  of  every  human  being  to  him- 
self and  for  God.  Earth  is  after  all  only  a 
place  to  grow  in  and  prepare  one's  self  for  lives 
to  come,  and  failure  here,  so  long  as  the  fight 
has  been  bravely  fought,  is  to  be  regarded 
with  anything  but  regret,  for  it  is  through 
the  failure  that  the  vision  of  the  future  is 
made  more  sure. 

What  he  finds  true,  as  we  saw,  in  the 
religious  or  philosophical  world,  he  finds  true 
in  the  moral  world.  Lack  in  human  knowl- 
edge points  the  way  to  God;  lack  in  human 
success  points  the  way  to  immortality. 

The  meaning  of  this  life  in  relation  to  a 
future  life  being  so  much  more  important  than 
this  life  in  itself,  and  man's  individual  develop- 
ment being  so  much  more  important  than  his 
social  development,  Browning  naturally  would 
not  turn  his  attention  upon  those  practical, 
social  or  governmental  means  by  which  even 
the  chance  for  individual  development  must 


214   BROWNING  AND  HIS  CENTURY 

be  secured.  He  is  too  much  occupied  with 
the  larger  questions.  He  is  not  even  a  middle- 
class  idealist,  dreaming  dreams  of  future 
earthly  bliss;  he  is  the  prophet  of  future  exist- 
ences. 

Does  his  practical  influence  upon  the  social 
development  of  the  century  amount  to  nothing 
then?  Not  at  all.  He  started  out  on  his 
voyage  through  the  century  toward  the 
democratic  ideal  in  the  good  ship  Individ- 
ualism —  the  banner  ship  indeed.  What  he 
has  emphasized  upon  this  voyage  is  first  the 
paramount  worth  of  each  and  every  human 
being,  whether  good  or  bad.  Second,  the 
possibility  in  every  human  being  of  conceiving 
an  ideal,  toward  which  by  the  exertion  of 
his  will  power  he  should  aspire,  battling 
steadfastly  against  every  obstruction  that  life 
throws  in  his  course.  Third,  that  even  those 
who  are  incapable  of  formulating  an  ideal 
must  be  regarded  as  living  out  the  truth 
of  their  natures  and  must  therefore  be  treated 
with  compassion.  Fourth,  that  the  highest 
function  of  the  human  soul  is  love,  which 
expresses  itself  in  many  ways,  but  attains  its 
full  flowering  only  in  the  love  of  man  and 
woman  on  a  plane  of  spiritual  exaltation,  and 
that  through  this  power  of  human  love  some 
glimpse  of  the  divine  is  caught;  therefore  to 


SOCIAL  IDEALS  215 

this  function  of  the  soul  it  is  of  the  utmost 
importance  that  human  beings  should  be 
loyal  and  true,  even  if  that  loyalty  and  truth 
conflict  with  conventional  ways  of  looking 
at  life.  Sailing  in  this  good  ship  he  also 
expresses  his  sympathy  indirectly  in  his 
dramas  and  directly  upon  several  occasions 
with  the  ideals  of  political  freedom  which 
during  the  century  have  been  making  progress 
toward  democracy  in  the  English  Parliament 
through  the  legislation  of  the  liberals,  whose 
laws  have  brought  a  greater  and  greater  meas- 
ure of  freedom  to  the  middle  classes  and  some 
measure  of  freedom  to  the  working  classes. 

But  it  seems  as  if  when  nearing  the  end 
of  the  century  Browning  landed  from  his  ship 
upon  some  high  island  and  straining  his  eyes 
toward  the  horizon  of  the  dawn  of  another 
life  did  not  fully  realize  that  there  was  another 
good  ship,  Socialism,  struggling  to  reach  the 
ideal  of  democracy,  and  now  become  the 
banner  ship  whose  work  is  to  sail  out  into 
the  unknown,  turbulent  seas  of  the  future, 
finding  the  path  to  another  high  island  in 
order  that  the  way  may  be  made  clear  for  the 
ship  Individualism  to  continue  her  course  to 
another  stage  in  the  voyage  toward  a  perfect 
democracy.  And  as  the  new  ship,  Socialism, 
passes  on  its  way  it  will  do  well  to  heed  the 


216   BROWNING  AND  HIS  CENTURY 

vision  of  the  poet  seer,  straining  his  eyes 
toward  the  dawn  of  other  lives  in  other 
spheres,  lest  in  the  struggle  and  strain  to 
bring  about  a  more  comfortable  and  beau- 
tiful life  upon  earth,  the  important  truth  be 
slighted  that  humanity  has  a  higher  destiny 
to  fulfil  than  can  be  realized  in  the  most 
Utopian  dreams  of  an  earthly  democracy. 
This  truth  is  in  fact  not  only  forgotten  but 
is  absolutely  denied  by  many  of  the  latter- 
day  social  reformers. 

To  sum  up,  I  think  one  is  justified  in 
concluding  that  as  a  sympathizer  with  the 
liberal  political  tendencies  of  the  nineteenth 
century  Browning  is  of  his  age.  In  his  qui- 
escence upon  the  proletarian  movement  of 
the  latter  part  of  the  nineteenth  century  he 
seems  to  have  been  left  behind  by  his  age.  In 
his  insistence  upon  the  worth  of  the  individual 
to  himself  and  to  God  he  is  both  of  his  age 
and  beyond  it.  As  has  been  said  of  phil- 
osophy, "It  cannot  give  us  bread  but  it  can 
give  us  God,  soul  and  immortality,"  so  we 
may  say  of  Browning,  that  though  he  did 
not  raise  up  his  voice  hi  the  cry  of  the  prole- 
tarian for  bread,  he  has  insisted  upon  the 
truths  of  God,  the  soul  and  immortality. 


ART  SHIBBOLETHS 

IN  THE  foregoing  chapters  the  relations  of 
the  poet  to  the  philosophical,  religious, 
political,  and  social  movements  of  the  nine- 
teenth century  have  been  pointed  out.  In 
this  and  the  next  chapter  some  account  of 
his  relation  to  the  artistic  and  literary  ideals 
of  the  century  will  be  attempted. 

Browning's  relation  to  the  art  of  the 
century  is,  of  course,  twofold,  dealing  as  it 
must  with  his  own  conceptions  and  criticisms 
of  art  as  well  as  with  the  position  of  his  own 
art  in  the  poetic  development  of  the  century. 

In  order  to  understand  more  fully  his  own 
contribution  to  the  developing  literary  stand- 
ards of  the  century  it  may  be  well  first  to 
consider  the  fundamental  principles  of  art 
laid  down  by  him  in  various  poems  wherein 
he  has  deliberately  dealt  with  the  subject. 

The  poem  in  which  he  has  most  clearly 
formulated  the  general  principles  underlying 
the  growth  of  art  is  the  "Parleying"  with 
Charles  Avison.  Though  music  is  the  special 

217 


218    BROWNING  AND  HIS  CENTURY 

art  under  consideration,  the  rules  of  growth 
obtaining  in  that  are  equally  applicable  to 
other  arts.  They  are  found  to  be,  as  we 
should  expect  in  Browning,  a  combination 
of  the  ideas  of  evolution  and  conservation. 
Though  the  standards  of  art  change  and 
develop,  because  as  man's  soul  evolves,  more 
complex  forms  are  needed  to  express  his  deeper 
experiences,  his  wider  vision,  yet  in  each 
stage  of  the  development  there  is  an  element 
of  permanent  beauty  which  by  the  aid  of 
the  historical  sense  man  may  continue  to 
enjoy.  That  element  of  permanence  exists 
when  genuine  feeling  and  aspiration  find 
expression  in  forms  of  art.  The  element 
of  change  grows  out  of  the  fact  that  both 
the  thought  expressed  and  the  form  in  which 
it  is  expressed  are  partial  manifestations  of 
the  beauty  or  truth  toward  which  feeling 
aspires;  hence  the  need  of  fresh  attempts  to 
reach  the  infinite.  The  permanence  of  feeling, 
expressing  itself  in  ever  new  forms,  is  brought 
out  finely  in  this  passage: 

"  Truths  escape 

Time's  insufficient  garniture:  they  fade, 
They  fall  —  those  sheathings  now  grown  sere,  whose  aid 
Was  infinite  to  truth  they  wrapped,  saved  fine 

And  free  through  march  frost:     May  dews  crystalline 
Nourish  truth  merely,  —  does  June  boast  the  fruit 
As  —  not  new  vesture  merely  but,  to  boot, 


ART  SHIBBOLETHS  219 

Novel  creation?    Soon  shall  fade  and  fall 
Myth  after  myth  —  the  husk-like  lies  I  call 
New  truth's  Corolla-safeguard. " 

In  another  passage  is  shown  how  the 
permanence  of  feeling  conserves  even  the 
form,  if  we  will  bring  ourselves  into  touch 
with  it: 

"Never  dream 

That  what  once  lived  shall  ever  die!    They  seem 
Dead  —  do  they?    lapsed  things  lost  in  limbo?    Bring 
Our  life  to  kindle  theirs,  and  straight  each  king 
Starts,  you  shall  see,  stands  up." 

This  kindling  of  an  old  form  with  our  own 
life  is  more  difficult  in  the  case  of  music  than 
it  is  in  painting  or  poetry,  for  in  these  we  have 
a  concrete  form  to  deal  with — a  form  which 
reflects  the  thought  with  much  more  definite- 
ness  than  music  is  able  to  do.  The  strength 
and  weakness,  at  once,  of  music  is  that  it 
gives  expression  to  subtler  regions  of  thought 
and  feeling  than  the  other  arts,  at  the  same 
time  that  the  form  is  more  evanescent,  because 
fashioned  out  of  elements  infinitely  less 
related  to  nature  than  those  of  other  art 
forms.  In  his  poems  on  music,  the  poet 
always  emphasizes  these  aspects  of  music. 
Its  supremacy  as  a  means  of  giving  expression 
to  the  subtlest  regions  of  feeling  is  dwelt  upon 


220   BROWNING  AND  HIS  CENTURY 

in  "Abt  Vogler"  and  "Fifine  at  the  Fair." 
The  Abbe,  from  the  standpoint  of  the  creator 
of  music,  feels  so  strongly  from  the  inside  its 
power  for  expressing  infinite  aspiration  that 
in  his  ecstasy  he  exclaims:  "The  rest  may 
reason  and  welcome.  'Tis  we  musicians 
know."  Upon  the  evanescence  of  the  form 
peculiar  emphasis  is  also  laid  in  this  poem, 
through  the  fact  that  the  music  is  improvised. 
Yet  even  this  fact  does  not  mean  the  entire 
annihilation  of  the  form.  In  the  tenth  stanza 
of  the  poem  the  idea  of  the  permanence  of 
the  art  form  as  well  as  of  the  feeling  is  ex- 
panded into  a  symbol  of  the  immortality  of 
all  good: 

"All  we  have  willed  or  hoped  or  dreamed  of  good  shall  exist; 
Not  its  semblance,  but  itself;  no  beauty,  nor  good,  nor 

power 

Whose  voice  has  gone  forth,  but  each  survives  for  the  melo- 
dist 

When  eternity  confirms  the  conception  of  an  hour, 
The  high  that   proved    too  high,  the   heroic   for  earth   too 

hard, 

The  passion  that  left  the  ground  to  lose  itself  in  the  sky, 
Are  music  sent  up  to  God  by  the  lover  and  the  bard; 

Enough  that  he  heard  it  once:  we  shall  hear  it  by-and-by. 

The  sophistical  arguer  in  "Fifine"  feels 
this  same  power  of  music  to  express  thoughts 
not  to  be  made  palpable  in  any  other  manner. 


ART  SHIBBOLETHS  221 

"Words  struggle  with  the  weight 
So  feebly  of  the  False,  thick  element  between 
Our  soul,  the  True,  and  Truth!  which,  but  that  intervene 
False  shows  of  things,  were  reached  as  easily  by  thought 
Reducible  to  word,  and  now  by  yearnings  wrought 
Up  with  thy  fine  free  force,  oh  Music,  that  canst  thrill, 
Electrically  win  a  passage  through  the  lid 
Of  earthly  sepulchre,  our  words  may  push  against, 
Hardly  transpierce  as  thou." 

And  again,  in  another  passage,  he  gives  to 
music  the  power  of  conserving  a  mood  of 
feeling,  which  in  this  case  is  not  an  exalted 
one,  since  it  is  one  that  chimes  in  with  his 
own  rather  questionable  feeling  for  Fifine,  the 
fiz-gig.  It  is  found  in  Schumann's  "  Carnival" : 

"Thought  hankers  after  speech,  while  no  speech  may  evince 
Feeling  like  music,  —  mine,  o'er-burthened  with  each  gift 
From  every  visitant,  at  last  resolved  to  shift 
Its  burthen  to  the  back  of  some  musician  dead 
And  gone,  who  feeling  once  what  I  feel  now,  instead 
Of  words,  sought  sounds,  and  saved  forever,  in  the  same, 
Truth  that  escapes  prose,  —  nay,  puts  poetry  to  shame. 
I  read  the  note,  I  strike  the  Key,  I  bid  record 
The  instrument  —  thanks  greet  the  veritable  word! 
And  not  in  vain  I  urge:  'O  dead  and  gone  away, 
Assist  who  struggles  yet,  thy  strength  becomes  my  stay, 
Thy  record  serve  as  well  to  register  —  I  felt 
And  knew  thus  much  of  truth!    With  me,  must  knowledge 

melt 

Into  surmise  and  doubt  and  disbelief  unless 
Thy  music  reassure  —  I  gave  no  idle  guess, 


222   BROWNING  AND  HIS  CENTURY 

But  gained  a  certitude  I  yet  may  hardly  keep! 
What  care?  since  round  is  piled  a  monumental  heap 
Of  music  that  conserves  the  assurance,  thou  as  well 
Was  certain  of  the  same!  thou,  master  of  the  spell, 
Mad'st  moonbeams  marble,  didst  record  what  other  men 
Feel  only  to  forget!" 

The  man  in  the  case  is  merely  an  appre- 
ciator,  not  a  creator,  yet  he  experiences  with 
equal  force  music's  power  as  a  recorder  of 
feeling.  He  notes  also  that  the  feeling  must 

appear  from  time  to  time  in  a  new  dress, 

• 

"the  stuff  that's  made 

To  furnish  man  with  thought  and  feeling  is  purveyed 
Substantially  the  same  from  age  to  age,  with  change 
Of  the  outside  only  for  successive  f casters. " 

In  this  case,  the  old  tunes  have  actually 
been  worked  over  by  the  more  modern 
composer  whose  form  has  not  yet  sufficiently 
gone  by  to  fail  of  an  immediate  appeal  to  this 
person  with  feelings  kindled  by  similar  experi- 
ences. What  the  speaker  in  the  poem  per- 
ceives is  not  merely  the  fact  of  the  feelings 
experienced  but  the  power  of  the  music  to 
take  him  off  upon  a  long  train  of  more  or  less 
philosophical  reasoning  born  of  that  very 
element  of  change.  In  this  power  of  sugges- 
tiveness  lies  music's  greater  range  of  spiritual 
force  even  when  the  feeling  expressed  is  not 
of  the  deepest. 


ART  SHIBBOLETHS  223 

If  we  look  at  his  poems  on  painting,  the 
same  principles  of  art  are  insisted  upon  except 
that  more  emphasis  is  laid  upon  the  positive 
value  of  the  incompleteness  of  the  form. 
In  so  far  as  painting  or  sculpture  reaches  a 
perfect  unity  of  thought  and  form  it  loses  its 
power  of  suggesting  an  infinite  beauty  beyond 
any  that  our  earth-born  race  may  express. 

This  in  Browning's  opinion  is  the  limitation 
of  Greek  art.  It  touches  perfection  or  com- 
pletion in  expression  and  in  so  doing  limits 
its  range  to  the  brief  passion  of  a  day.  The 
effect  of  such  art  is  to  arouse  a  sort  of  despair, 
for  it  so  far  transcends  merely  human  beauty 
that  there  seems  nothing  left  to  accomplish: 

"So,  testing  your  weakness  by  their  strength, 

Your  meagre  charms  by  their  rounded  beauty 
Measured  by  Art  in  your  breadth  and  length, 
You  learned  —  to  submit  is  a  mortal's  duty. " 

When  such  a  deadlock  as  this  is  reached 
through  the  stultifying  effect  of  an  art  expres- 
sion which  seems  to  have  embodied  all  there 
is  of  passion  and  physical  beauty,  the  one 
way  out  is  to  turn  away  from  the  abject  con- 
templation of  such  art  and  go  back  again 
to  humanity  itself,  in  whose  widening  nature 
may  be  discovered  the  promise  of  an  eternity 
of  progression.  Therefore,  "  To  cries  of  Greek 


224    BROWNING  AND  HIS  CENTURY 

art   and   what   more   wish   you?"   the   poet 
would  have  it  that  the  early  painters  replied: 

"To  become  now  self-acquainters, 

And  paint   man,  whatever  the  issue! 
Make  new  hopes  shine  through  the  flesh  they  fray, 

New  fears  aggandize  the  rags  and  tatters: 
To  bring  the  invisible  full  into  play! 

Let  the  visible  go  to  the  dogs  —  what  matters?" 

The  revolution  in  art  started  by  these  early 
worthies  had  more  of  spiritual  promise  in  it 
than  the  past  perfection — "The  first  of  the 
new,  in  our  race's  story,  beats  the  last  of  the 
old." 

His  emphasis  here  upon  the  return  to 
humanity  in  order  to  gain  a  new  source  of 
inspiration  in  art  is  further  illustrated  in  his 
attitude  toward  the  two  painters  which  he 
portrays  so  splendidly:  Fra  Lippo  Lippi,  the 
realist,  whose  Madonnas  looked  like  real 
women,  and  who  has  scandalized  some  critics 
on  this  account,  and  Andrea  del  Sarto,  the 
faultless  painter,  who  exclaims  in  despair  as 
he  gazes  upon  a  picture  by  Raphael,  in  which 
he  sees  a  fault  to  pardon  in  the  drawing's 
line,  an  error  that  he  could  alter  for  the 
better,  "But  all  the  play,  the  insight  and  the 
stretch,"  beyond  him. 

The  importance  of  basing  art  upon  the  study 


ART  SHIBBOLETHS  225 

of  the  human  body  is  later  insisted  upon  in 
Francis  Furini,  not  as  an  end  in  itself,  but  as 
the  dwelling  place  of  the  soul.  "Let  my 
pictures  prove  I  know,"  says  Furini, 

"Somewhat  of  what  this  fleshly  frame  of  ours 
Or  is  or  should  be,  how  the  soul  empowers 
The  body  to  reveal  its  every  mood 
Of  love  and  hate,  pour  forth  its  plenitude 
Of  passion. " 

The  evolutionary  ideal  appears  again  in 
his  utterances  upon  poetry,  though  when 
speaking  of  poetry  it  is  the  value  of  the 
subject  matter  and  its  intimate  relation  to  the 
form  upon  which  he  dwells. 

The  little  poem  "Popularity"  shows  as 
clearly  as  any  the  importance  which  he 
attaches  to  a  new  departure  in  poetic  expres- 
sion, besides  giving  vent  to  his  scorn  of  the 
multitude  which  sees  nothing  in  the  work 
of  the  innovator  but  which  is  ready  at  a 
later  date  to  laud  his  imitators.  Any  minor 
poet,  for  that  matter,  any  Nokes  or  Stokes 
who  merely  prints  blue  according  to  the 
poetic  conventions  of  the  past,  possessing  not 
a  suspicion  of  the  true  inspiration  which  goes 
to  the  making  of  a  poet  of  the  new  order,  is 
more  acceptable  to  an  unseeing  public  than 
him  with  power  to  fish  "the  murex  up"  that 
contains  the  precious  drop  of  royal  blue. 


226   BROWNING  AND  HIS  CENTURY 

More  than  one  significant  hint  may  be 
gleaned  from  his  verse  in  regard  to  his  opinion 
upon  the  formal  side  of  the  poet's  art.  In 
"Transcendentalism"  he  has  his  fling  at  the 
didactic  poet  who  pleases  to  speak  naked 
thoughts  instead  of  draping  them  in  sights 
and  sounds,  for  "song"  is  the  art  of  the  poet. 
Some  stout  mage  like  him  of  Halberstadt  has 
his  admiration,  who  with  a 

'Look  you!'  vents  a  brace  of  rhymes, 
And  in  there  breaks  the  sudden  rose  herself, 
Over  us,  under,  round  us  every  side, 
Nay,  in  and  out  the  tables  and  the  chairs 
And  musty  volumes,  Boehme's  book  and  all,  — 
Buries  us  with  a  glory  young  once  more, 
Pouring  heaven  into  this  shut  house  of  life. " 

He  was  equally  averse  to  an  ornate  classical 
embellishment  of  a  latter  day  subject  or  to 
a  looking  at  nature  through  mythopceic  Greek 
eyes.  This  is  driven  home  in  the  splendid 
fooling  in  "Gerard  de  Lairesse"  where  the 
poet  himself  indulges  by  way  of  a  joke  in 
some  high-flown  classical  imagery  in  derision 
of  the  style  of  Lairesse  and  hints  covertly 
probably  at  the  nineteenth-century  masters  of 
classical  resuscitation,  in  subject  matter  and 
allusion,  Swinburne  and  Morris.  Reacting  to 
soberer  mood,  he  reiterates  his  belief  in  the  ut- 
ter deadness  of  Greek  ideals  of  art,  speaking 


AKT  SHIBBOLETHS  227 

with  a  strength  of  conviction  so  profound  as  to 
make  one  feel  that  here  at  least  Browning 
suffered  from  a  decided  limitation,  all  the 
more  strange,  too,  when  one  considers  his 
own  masterly  treatment  of  Greek  subjects. 
To  the  poets  whose  poetic  creed  is 

"Dream  afresh  old  godlike  shapes, 
Recapture  ancient  fable  that  escapes, 
Push  back  reality,  repeople  earth 
With  vanished  falseness,  recognize  no  worth 
In  fact  new-born  unless  'tis  rendered  back 
Pallid  by  fancy,  as  the  western  rack 
Of  fading  cloud  bequeaths  the  lake  some  gleam 
Of  its  gone  glory!" 

he  would  reply, 

"Let  things  be  —  not  seem, 
I  counsel  rather,  —  do,  and  nowise  dream! 
Earth's  young  significance  is  all  to  learn; 
The  dead  Greek  lore  lies  buried  in  the  urn 
Where  who  seeks  fire  finds  ashes.     Ghost,  forsooth! 
What  was  the  best  Greece  babbled  of  as  truth? 
A  shade,  a  wretched  nothing,  —  sad,  thin,  drear, 


Sad  school       ' 

Was  Hades!    Gladly,  —  might  the  dead  but  slink 
To  life  back,  —  to  the  dregs  once  more  would  drink 
Each  interloper,  drain  the  humblest  cup 
Fate  mixes  for  humanity. 


228   BROWNING  AND  HIS  CENTURY 

The  rush  onward  to  the  supreme  is  upper- 
most in  the  poet's  mind  in  this  poem.  Though 
he  does  indulge  in  the  refrain  that  there  shall 
never  be  one  lost  good  echoing  the  thought 
in  "Charles  Avison,"  the  climax  of  his  mood 
is  in  the  contemplation  of  the  evolutionary 
force  of  the  soul  which  must  leave  Greek  art 
behind  and  find  new  avenues  of  beauty: 

"The  Past  indeed 

Is  past,  gives  way  before  Life's  best  and  last 
The  all-including  Future!    What  were  life 
Did  soul  stand  still  therein,  forego  her  strife 
Through  the  ambiguous  Present  to  the  goal 
Of  some  all-reconciling  Future?    Soul, 
Nothing  has  been  which  shall  not  bettered  be 
Hereafter,  —  leave  the  root,  by  law's  decree 
Whence  springs  the  ultimate  and  perfect  tree! 
Busy  thee  with  unearthing  root?    Nay,  climb  — 
Quit  trunk,  branch,  leaf  and  flower  —  reach,  rest  sublime 
Where  fruitage  ripens  in  the  blaze  of  day." 

When  it  comes  to  the  subject  matter  of 
poetry,  Browning  constantly  insists  that  it 
should  be  the  study  of  the  human  soul.  A 
definite  statement  as  to  the  range  of  subjects 
under  this  general  material  of  poetry  is  put 
forth  very  early  in  his  poetical  career  in 
"Paracelsus"  and  it  is  all-inclusive.  It  is  the 
passage  where  Aprile  describes  how  universal 
he  wished  to  make  his  sympathy  as  a  poet. 


ART  SHIBBOLETHS  229 

No  one  is  to  be  left  out  of  his  all-embracing 
democracy. 

Such,  then,  are  his  general  principles  in 
regard  to  poetic  development  and  subject 
matter.  These  do  not  touch  upon  the  ques- 
tion so  often  discussed  of  the  relative  value 
of  the  subjective  as  against  the  objective  poet. 
This  point  the  poet  considers  in  "Sordello," 
where  he  throws  in  his  weight  on  the  side 
of  the  objective  poet.  In  the  passage  in  the 
third  book  the  poet,  speaking  in  person, 
gives  illustrations  of  three  sorts  of  poetic 
composition:  the  dramatic,  the  descriptive  and 
the  meditative;  the  first  belongs  to  the  objec- 
tive, the  second,  not  distinctively  to  either, 
and  the  third  to  the  subjective  manner  of 
writing.  The  dramatic  method  is  the  most 
forceful,  for  it  imparts  the  gift  of  seeing  to 
others,  while  the  descriptive  and  meditative 
merely  tell  what  they  saw,  or,  worse  still,  talk 
about  it. 

Further  indications  of  his  allegiance  to  the 
dramatic  form  of  poetry  as  the  supreme  one 
are  found  in  his  poems  inspired  by  Shake- 
speare, "House"  and  "Shop,"  but  we  must 
turn  to  a  pregnant  bit  of  his  prose  in  order 
to  find  his  exact  feeling  upon  the  relations  of 
the  subjective  and  objective  poet,  together 
with  a  clear  conception  of  what  he  meant  by 


230   BROWNING  AND  HIS  CENTURY 

a  dramatic  poet,  which  was  something  more 
than  Shakespeare's  "holding  the  mirror  up 
to  nature."  In  his  view  the  dramatic  poet 
must  have  the  vision  of  the  seer  as  well  as 
the  penetration  of  a  psychologist.  He  must 
hold  the  mirror  up  not  only  to  nature,  regarded 
as  phenomena,  but  to  the  human  soul,  and 
he  must  perceive  the  relation  of  that  human 
soul  to  the  universal.  He  must  in  fact 
plunge  beneath  the  surface  of  actions  and 
events  and  bring  forth  to  the  light  the  psychic 
and  cosmic  causes  of  these  things.  The 
passage  referred  to  in  the  "Introduction  to 
the  Shelley  Letters"  points  out  how  in  the 
evolution  of  poetry  there  will  be  the  play 
and  interplay  of  the  subjective  and  the 
objective  faculties  upon  each  other,  with  the 
probable  result  of  the  arising  of  poets  who 
will  combine  the  two  sorts  of  faculty.  While 
Browning's  own  sympathy  with  the  dramatic 
poet  is  as  fully  evident  here  as  in  the  passage 
in  "Sordello,"  he  realizes,  as  perhaps  he  did 
not  at  that  time,  when  he  was  himself  breaking 
away  from  Shelley's  influence,  the  value  of 
the  subjective  method  in  carrying  on  the 
process  of  poetic  evolution: 

"It  would  be  idle  to  inquire,  of  these  two  kinds  of  poetic 
faculty  in  operation,  which  is  the  higher  or  even  rarer  en- 
dowment. If  the  subjective  might  seem  to  be  the  ultimate 


ART  SHIBBOLETHS  231 

requirement  of  every  age,  the  objective,  in  the  strictest  state, 
must  still  retain  its  original  value.  For  it  is  with  this  word, 
as  starting-point  and  basis  alike,  that  we  shall  always  have  to 
concern  ourselves:  the  world  is  not  to  be  learned  and  thrown 
aside,  but  reverted  to  and  relearned.  The  spiritual  compre- 
hension may  be  infinitely  subtilized,  but  the  raw  material  it 
operates  upon  must  remain.  There  may  be  no  end  of  the 
poets  who  communicate  to  us  what  they  see  in  an  object  with 
reference  to  their  own  individuality;  what  it  was  before  they 
saw  it,  in  reference  to  the  aggregate  human  mind,  will  be  as 
desirable  to  know  as  ever.  Nor  is  there  any  reason  why  these 
two  modes  of  poetic  faculty  may  not  issue  hereafter  from  the 
same  poet  in  successive  perfect  works,  examples  of  which, 
according  to  what  are  now  considered  the  exigencies  of  art, 
we  have  hitherto  possessed  in  distinct  individuals  only.  A 
mere  running  in  of  the  one  faculty  upon  the  other  is,  of  course, 
the  ordinary  circumstance.  Far  more  rarely  it  happens  that 
cither  is  found  so  decidedly  prominent  and  superior  as  to  be 
pronounced  comparatively  pure:  while  of  the  perfect  shield, 
with  the  gold  and  the  silver  side  set  up  for  all  comers  to 
challenge,  there  has  yet  been  no  instance.  A  tribe  of  suc- 
cessors (Homerides),  working  more  or  less  in  the  same  spirit, 
dwell  on  his  discoveries  and  reinforce  his  doctrine;  till,  at 
unawares,  the  world  is  found  to  be  subsisting  wholly  on  the 
shadow  of  a  reality,  on  sentiments  diluted  from  passions,  on 
the  tradition  of  a  fact,  the  convention  of  a  moral,  the  straw  of 
last  year's  harvest.  Then  is  the  imperative  call  for  the  ap- 
pearance of  another  sort  of  poet,  who  shall  at  once  replace  this 
intellectual  rumination  of  food  swallowed  long  ago,  by  a  supply 
of  the  fresh  and  living  swathe;  getting  at  new  substance  by 
breaking  up  the  assumed  wholes  into  parts  of  independent 
and  unclassed  value,  careless  of  the  unknown  laws  for  recom- 
bining  them  (it  will  be  the  business  of  yet  another  poet 
to  suggest  those  hereafter),  prodigal  of  objects  for  men's  outer 


232   BROWNING  AND  HIS  CENTURY 

and  not  inner  sight;  shaping  for  their  uses  a  new  and  different 
creation  from  the  last,  which  it  displaces  by  the  right  of  life 
over  death,  —  to  endure  until,  in  the  inevitable  process,  its 
very  sufficiency  to  itself  shall  require,  at  length,  an  exposition 
of  its  affinity  to  something  higher  —  when  the  positive  yet 
conflicting  facts  shall  again  precipitate  themselves  under  a 
harmonizing  law,  and  one  more  degree  will  be  apparent  for  a 
poet  to  climb  in  that  mighty  ladder,  of  which,  however  cloud- 
involved  and  undefined  may  glimmer  the  topmost  step,  the 
world  dares  no  longer  doubt  that  its  gradations  ascend. " 

If  we  measure  Browning's  own  work  by 
the  poetic  standards  which  he  has  himself 
set  up  in  the  course  of  that  work,  it  is  quite 
evident  that  he  has  on  the  whole  lived  up  to 
them.  He  has  shown  himself  to  be  an  illus- 
tration of  the  evolutionary  principles  in  which 
he  believes  by  breaking  away  from  all  pre- 
vious standards  of  taste  in  poetry.  The 
history  of  poetry  in  England  has  shown 
this  to  be  a  distinctive  characteristic  of  all 
the  greatest  English  poets.  From  Shake- 
speare down  they  have  one  and  all  run  afoul 
of  the  critics  whose  special  province  seems  to 
be  to  set  up  literary  shibboleths  which  every 
genius  is  bent  upon  disregarding.  When 
Spenser  was  inventing  his  stanza,  verse  critics 
were  abject  in  their  worship  of  hexameters, 
and  their  hatred  of  bald  rhymes.  Though 
these  sticklers  for  classical  forms  could  see 
clearly  enough  that  Spenser  was  possessed  of 


ART  SHIBBOLETHS  233 

genius,  they  yet  lamented  the  blindness  of 
one,  who  might  have  written  hexameters, 
perversely  exclaiming  "Why  a  God's  name 
may  not  we  as  else  the  Greeks  have  the 
kingdom  of  our  own  language,  and  measure 
our  accents  by  the  sound,  reserving  quantity 
to  the  verse?"  When  Milton  appears  and 
finds  blank  verse  the  medium  best  suited  to 
his  subject,  he  comes  up  against  the  rhyming 
standards  of  his  day  and  is  forced  to  submit 
to  the  indignity  of  having  his  "Paradise 
Lost"  "tagged  with  rhymes,"  as  he  expresses 
it,  by  Dryden,  who  graciously  devoted  his 
powers  of  rhyme  to  an  improved  version  of 
the  poem.  Milton  was  actually  obliged  to 
defend  himself  in  his  preface  to  "Paradise 
Lost"  for  using  blank  verse,  as  Browning 
defends  himself  in  the  Epilogue  to  "Pacchiar- 
otto  and  How  We  Worked  in  Distemper" 
for  writing  "strong"  verse  instead  of  the 
"sweet"  verse  the  critics  demand  of  him. 

By  the  time  the  nineteenth  century  dawns 
the  critics  are  safely  intrenched  in  the  editorial 
den,  from  which,  shielded  by  any  sort  of  shib- 
boleth they  can  get  hold  of,  they  may  hurl 
forth  their  projectiles  upon  the  unoffending 
head  of  the  genius,  who,  with  no  chance  of 
firing  back  in  the  open  arena  of  the  magazine, 
must  either  suffer  in  silence  or  take  refuge 


234   BROWNING  AND  HIS  CENTURY 

in  sarcastic  slurs  upon  his  critics  in  his 
poetry,  for  here  lies  the  only  chance  of  getting 
even  without  waiting  for  the  whirligig  of  time 
to  bring  the  public  round  to  a  recognition  of 
the  fact  that  he  is  the  one  who  has  in  very 
truth,  "fished  the  murex  up." 

The  caliber  of  man  who  could  speak  of 
"The  Ode  to  Immortality"  as  "a  most  illegi- 
ble and  unintelligible  poem,"  or  who  wonders 
that  any  man  in  his  senses  could  put  his  name 
to  such  a  rhapsody  as  "Endymion,"  or  who 
dismissed  "Prometheus  Unbound"  with  the 
remark  that  it  was  a  melange  of  nonsense, 
cockney  ism,  poverty  and  pedantry,  would 
hardly  be  expected  to  welcome  "Sordello" 
with  effusion.  Even  very  intelligent  people 
cracked  unseemly  jokes  upon  the  appearance 
of  "Sordello,"  and  what  wonder,  for  Brown- 
ing's British  instinct  for  freedom  carried  him 
in  this  poem  to  the  most  extreme  lengths. 
In  "Pauline"  he  had  allied  himself  with 
things  familiar  to  the  English  reader  of  poetry. 
Many  of  the  allusions  are  classical  and 
introduced  with  a  rich  musicalness  that 
Shelley  himself  might  have  envied.  The 
reminiscences  of  Shelley  would  also  come 
within  the  intellectual  acreage  of  most  of  the 
cultured  people  of  the  time.  And  even  in 
"Paracelsus,"  despite  the  unfamiliarity  of  the 


ART  SHIBBOLETHS  235 

subject,  there  was  music  and  imagery  such  as 
to  link  the  art  with  the  admired  poetic  art 
of  the  day,  but  in  "Sordello"  all  bounds  are 
broken. 

No  one  but  a  delver  in  the  byways  of 
literature  could,  at  that  time,  have  been 
expected  to  know  anything  about  Sordello; 
no  one  but  a  historian  could  have  been 
expected  to  know  about  the  complicated 
struggles  of  the  Guelfs  and  the  Ghibellines; 
no  one  but  a  philosopher  about  the  tenden- 
cies, both  political  and  literary,  manifesting 
themselves  in  the  direction  of  the  awakening 
of  democratic  ideals  in  these  pre-Dantean 
days;  no  one  but  a  psychologist  about  the 
tortuous  windings  of  Sordello's  mind. 

Only  by  special  searching  into  all  these 
regions  of  knowledge  can  one  to-day  gain  a 
complete  grasp  of  the  situation.  He  must 
patiently  tread  all  the  paths  that  Browning 
trod  before  he  can  enter  into  sympathy  with 
the  poet.  Then  he  will  crack  no  more  jokes, 
but  he  will  marvel  at  the  mind  which  could 
wield  all  this  knowledge  with  such  consum- 
mate familiarity;  he  will  grow  ecstatic  over 
the  splendors  of  the  poem,  and  will  regret  its 
redundancy  not  of  diction  so  much  but  of 
detail  and  its  amazing  lack  of  organic  unity. 

No   one   but  a   fanatic  could   claim  that 


236   BROWNING  AND  HIS  CENTURY 

"Sordello"  is  a  success  as  an  organic  work  of 
art.  While  the  poet  had  a  mastery  of  knowl- 
edge, thought  and  feeling,  he  did  not  have 
sufficient  mastery  of  his  own  form  to  weld 
these  together  into  a  harmonious  and  con- 
vincing whole,  such  mastery  as  he,  for  exam- 
ple, shows  in  "The  Ring  and  the  Book," 
though  even  in  that  there  is  some  survival 
of  the  old  redundancy. 

One  feels  when  considering  "Sordello"  as  a 
whole  as  if  gazing  upon  a  picture  in  which 
the  perspective  and  the  high  lights  and  the 
shadows  are  not  well  related  to  each  other. 
As  great  an  abundance  of  detail  is  expended 
upon  the  less  important  as  upon  the  more 
important  fact,  and  while  the  details  may  be 
interesting  enough  in  themselves,  they  dis- 
lodge more  important  affairs  from  the  center 
of  consciousness.  It  is,  not  to  be  too  flippant, 
something  like  Alice's  game  of  croquet  in 
"Through  the  Looking  Glass."  When  the 
hedgehog  ball  is  nicely  rolled  up  ready  to  be 
struck,  the  flamingo  mallet  walks  off  some- 
where else. 

There,  then,  in  "Sordello"  is  perhaps  the 
most  remarkable  departure  from  the  accepted 
in  poetic  art  that  an  Englishman  has  ever 
attempted.  In  its  elements  of  failure,  how- 
ever, it  gave  "a  triumph's  evidence,"  to  use 


ART  SHIBBOLETHS  237 

the  poet's  own  phrase,  "of  the  fulness  of  the 
days."  In  this  poem  he  had  thrown  down 
the  gauntlet.  His  subject  matter  was  not 
to  be  like  that  of  any  other  poet,  nor  was  his 
form  to  be  like  that  of  any  other  poet.  He 
discarded  the  flowing  music  of  "  Pauline  "  and 
of  "  Paracelsus."  His  allusions  were  no  longer 
to  be  classic,  but  to  be  directly  related  to 
whatever  subject  he  had  in  hand;  his  style 
was  also  to  be  forth-right  and  related  to  his 
subject,  strong,  idiomatic,  rugged,  even  jolting 
if  need  be,  or  noble,  sweeping  along  in  large 
rhythms  or  couched  in  rare  forms  of  sym- 
bolism, but,  whatever  it  was  to  be,  always 
different  from  what  had  been. 

All  he  required  at  the  time  when  "Sordello" 
appeared  was  to  find  that  form  in  which 
he  could  so  unify  his  powers  that  his  poems 
would  gain  the  organic  completeness  neces- 
sary to  a  work  of  art.  No  matter  what  new 
regions  an  artist  may  push  into  he  must  dis- 
cover the  law  of  being  of  this  new  region. 
Unless  he  does,  his  art  will  not  convince,  but 
the  moment  he  does,  all  that  was  not  con- 
vincing falls  into  its  right  place.  He  becomes 
the  master  of  his  art,  and  relates  the  new 
elements  in  such  a  way  that  their  Tightness 
and  their  beauty,  if  not  immediately  recog- 
nized, are  sure  sooner  or  later  to  be  recog- 


238    BROWNING  AND  HIS  CENTURY 

nized  by  the  evolving  appreciator,  who  is  the 
necessary  complement,  by  the  way,  of  the 
evolving  artist.  Before  "Sordello"  Brown- 
ing had  tried  three  other  forms;  the  subjective 
narrative  in  "Pauline,"  the  dramatic  poem  in 
"Paracelsus,"  a  regular  drama  in  " Straff ord," 
which  however  runs  partly  parallel  with 
"  Sordello  "  in  composition.  He  had  also  done 
two  or  three  short  dramatic  monologues. 

He  evidently  hoped  that  the  regular  drama 
would  prove  to  be  the  form  most  congenial  to 
him,  for  he  kept  on  persistently  in  that  form 
for  nearly  ten  years,  wrote  much  magnificent 
poetry  in  it  and  at  times  attained  a  grandeur 
of  dramatic  utterance  hardly  surpassed  ex- 
cept in  the  master  of  all  dramatists,  Shake- 
speare. But  while  he  has  attained  a  very 
genuine  success  in  this  form,  it  is  not  the 
success  of  the  popular  acting  drama.  His 
dramas  are  to-day  probably  being  left  farther 
and  farther  aside  every  moment  in  the  present 
exaggerated  demands  for  characters  in  action, 
or  perhaps  it  might  be  nearer  the  truth  to 
say  clothes  horses  in  action.  Besides,  the 
drama  of  action  in  character,  which  is  the 
type  of  drama  introduced  into  English  litera- 
ture by  Browning,  has  reached  a  more  perfect 
development  in  other  hands.  Ibsen's  dramas 
are  preeminently  dramas  of  action  in  char- 


ART  SHIBBOLETHS  239 

acter,  but  the  action  moves  with  such  rapidity 
that  the  audience  is  almost  cheated  into  think- 
ing they  are  the  old  thing  over  again — that  is, 
dramas  of  characters  in  action. 

Browning's  characters  in  his  dramas  are 
presented  with  a  completeness  of  psycho- 
logical analysis  which  makes  them  of  para- 
mount interest  to  those  few  who  can  and 
like  to  listen  to  people  holding  forth  to  any 
length  on  the  stage,  and  with  superb  actors, 
who  can  give  every  subtlest  change  of  mood, 
a  Browning  drama  furnishes  an  opportunity 
for  the  utmost  intensity  of  pleasure.  Still, 
one  cannot  help  but  feel  that  the  impression- 
istic psychology  of  Ibsen  reaches  a  pinnacle 
of  dramatic  art  not  attained  by  Browning  in 
his  plays,  delightful  in  character  portrayal 
as  they  are,  and  not  upon  any  account  to  have 
been  missed  from  dramatic  literature. 

In  the  dramatic  monologue  Browning  found 
just  that  form  which  would  focus  his  forces, 
bringing  them  into  the  sort  of  relationship 
needed  to  reveal  the  true  law  of  being  for  his 
new  region  of  poetic  art. 

If  we  inquire  just  why  this  form  was  the 
true  medium  for  the  most  perfect  expression 
of  his  genius,  I  think  we  may  answer  that 
in  it,  as  he  has  developed  it,  is  given  an  op- 
portunity for  the  legitimate  exercise  of  his 


240   BROWNING  AND  HIS  CENTURY 

mental  subtlety.  Through  the  voice  of  one 
speaker  he  can  portray  not  only  the  speaker 
but  one  or  more  other  characters,  and  at 
the  same  time  show  the  scene  setting,  and  all 
without  any  direct  description.  On  the  other 
hand,  his  tendency  to  redundancy,  so  marked 
when  he  is  making  a  character  reveal  only 
his  own  personality,  is  held  in  check  by  the 
necessity  of  using  just  those  words  and  turns 
of  expression  and  dwelling  upon  just  those 
details  which  will  make  each  character  stand 
out  distinctly,  and  at  the  same  time  bring 
the  scene  before  the  reader. 

The  people  in  his  dramatic  monologues  live 
before  us  by  means  of  a  psychology  as  impres- 
sionistic as  that  of  Ibsen's  in  his  plays.  The 
effect  is  the  same  as  that  in  a  really  great 
impressionistic  painting.  Nature  is  revealed 
far  more  distinctly  —  the  thing  of  lights  and 
shadows,  space  and  movement  —  than  in 
pictures  bent  upon  endless  details  of  form. 
"My  Last  Duchess"  is  one  among  many 
fine  examples  of  his  method  in  monologue. 
In  that  short  poem  we  are  made  to  see  what 
manner  of  man  is  the  duke,  what  manner  of 
woman  the  duchess.  We  see  what  has  been 
the  duke's  past,  what  is  to  be  his  future, 
also  the  present  scene,  as  the  duke  stands  in 
the  hall  of  his  palace  talking  to  an  ambassador 


ART  SHIBBOLETHS  241 

from  the  count  who  has  come  to  arrange  a 
marriage  with  the  duke  for  the  count's 
daughter.  Besides  all  this  a  glimpse  of  the 
ambassador's  attitude  of  mind  is  given.  This 
is  done  by  an  absolutely  telling  choice  of  words 
and  by  an  organic  relationing  of  the  different 
elements.  The  law  of  his  genius  asserts  itself. 

Browning's  own  ideal  of  the  poet  who 
makes  others  see  was  not  completely  realized 
until  he  had  perfected  a  form  which  would 
lend  itself  most  perfectly  to  the  manner  of 
thing  which  he  desired  to  make  others  see  — 
namely,  the  human  soul  in  all  its  possible 
manifestations  of  feeling  and  mood,  good,  bad, 
and  indifferent,  from  the  uninspired  organist 
who  struggles  with  a  mountainous  fugue  to 
the  inspired  improvisor  whose  soul  ascends 
to  God  on  the  wings  of  his  music,  from  the 
unknown  sensitive  painter  who  cannot  bear 
to  have  his  pictures  the  subject  of  criticism 
or  commerce  to  the  jolly  life-loving  Fra 
Lippo,  from  the  jealous,  vindictive  woman  of 
"The  Laboratory"  to  the  vision-seeing  Pom- 
pilia,  from  Ned  Bratts  to  Bishop  Blougram, 
and  so  on  —  so  many  and  wonderful  that 
custom  cannot  state  their  infinite  variety. 

Consistent,  so  far,  with  his  own  theories 
we  find  the  work  of  Browning  to  be.  He  also 
follows  his  ideal  in  the  discarding  of  classical 


242   BROWNING  AND  HIS  CENTURY 

allusion  and  illustration.  Part  of  his  dictum 
that  the  form  should  express  the  thought 
is  shown  in  his  habitual  fitting  of  his  allusions 
to  the  subject  he  is  treating.  By  this  means 
he  produces  his  atmosphere  and  brings  the 
scene  clearly  before  us;  witness  his  constant 
references  to  Molinos  and  his  influence  in 
"The  Ring  and  the  Book,"  an  influence  which 
was  making  itself  felt  in  all  classes  of  society 
at  the  time  when  the  actual  tragedy  portrayed 
in  the  poem  occurred.  This  habit,  of  course, 
brings  into  his  poetry  a  far  wider  range  of 
allusions  unfamiliar  to  his  contemporaries 
than  is  to  be  found  in  other  Victorian  poets, 
and  makes  it  necessary  that  these  should  be 
"looked  up"  before  an  adequate  enjoyment 
of  their  fitness  is  possible.  Hence  the  Brown- 
ing societies,  so  often  held  up  to  ridicule  by 
the  critics,  who  blindly  prefer  to  show  their 
superior  attitude  of  mind  in  regard  to  every- 
thing they  do  not  know,  and  growl  about 
his  obscurity,  to  welcoming  any  movement 
which  means  an  increase  of  general  culture. 
The  Browning  societies  have  not  only  done 
much  to  make  Browning's  unusual  allusions 
common  matters  of  knowledge,  but  they  have 
helped  to  keep  alive  a  taste  for  all  poetry  in 
an  age  when  poetry  has  needed  all  the  friendly 
support  it  could  get. 


ART  SHIBBOLETHS  243 

All  great  poets  lead  the  ordinary  mind  to 
unfamiliar  regions  of  knowledge  and  thereby 
to  fresh  planes  of  enjoyment.  That  Browning 
has  outdone  all  other  poets  in  this  particular 
should  be  to  his  honor,  not  to  his  dispraise. 

In  one  very  marked  direction,  however,  he 
is  not  a  perfect  exemplar  of  his  own  theories  — 
that  is,  he  is  not  always  consistently  dramatic. 
He  belongs  to  that  order  of  poets  described 
by  himself  in  the  Shelley  Introduction  as 
neither  completely  subjective  nor  completely 
objective,  but  with  the  two  faculties  at  times 
running  in  upon  each  other.  He  is  often 
absolutely  objective  in  his  expression  of  a 
mood  or  a  feeling,  but  the  moment  the  mood 
takes  upon  it  the  tinge  of  thought  we  begin 
to  feel  Browning  himself. 

The  fundamental  principles  upon  which  he 
bases  his  own  solution  of  the  problems  of 
existence  are  seen  to  crop  out,  colored,  it  is 
true,  by  the  personality  of  the  speaker,  but 
yet  traceable  to  their  source  in  the  mental 
make  up  of  Browning  himself.  It  may  well 
be  that  Browning  has  come  so  near  to  the 
ultimate  truth  discoverable  by  man  in  his 
fundamental  principles  that  they  are  actually 
universal  truths,  to  be  found  lying  deep  down 
at  the  roots  of  all  more  partial  expressions,  just 
as  gravitation,  conservation  of  energy,  evo- 


244    BROWNING  AND  HIS  CENTURY 

lution  underlie  every  phenomena  of  nature, 
and  therefore  when  a  Pope  in  "The  Ring 
and  the  Book,"  a  Prince  Hohenstiel-Swangau, 
a  Bishop  Blougram,  a  Cleon  or  a  John  in 
"The  Death  in  the  Desert,"  give  utterance 
to  their  views  upon  life,  they  are  bound  to 
touch  from  one  or  another  angle  the  basic 
principles  of  life  common  to  all  humanity 
as  well  as  to  the  poet  —  the  center  within 
us  all  where  "truth  abides  in  fulness." 

This  would  seem  an  even  more  complete 
fusing  of  the  two  faculties  in  one  poet  than 
that  spoken  of  by  Browning,  where  a  poet 
would  issue  successive  works,  in  some  of  them 
the  one  faculty  and  in  some  of  them  the  other 
faculty  being  supreme. 

That  Browning  was,  to  a  certain  extent,  a 
poet  of  this  third  order  of  which  he  prophesied 
is  true,  for  he  has  written  a  number  of  poems 
like  "La  Saisiaz,"  "Reverie,"  various  of  his 
prologues  and  epilogues  which  are  purely 
subjective  in  content.  There  are  also  sub- 
jective passages  in  the  midst  of  other  poems, 
like  those  in  "Sordello,"  "Prince  Hohenstiel," 
the  "Parleyings,"  etc.  If  we  place  such  a 
poem  as  "Reverie"  side  by  side  with  "Fra 
Lippo  Lippi"  we  see  well-nigh  perfect  illus- 
trations of  the  two  faculties  as  they  existed 
in  the  one  poet,  Browning.  On  the  other 


ART  SHIBBOLETHS  245 

hand,  in  those  poems  where  the  thought,  as 
I  have  said,  suggests  Browning,  in  the  speech 
of  his  characters  he  has  something  of  the 
quality  of  what  Browning  calls  the  subjective 
poet  of  modern  classification.  "Gifted  like 
the  objective  poet,  with  the  fuller  perception 
of  nature  and  man,  he  is  impelled  to  embody 
the  thing  he  perceives,  not  so  much  with  refer- 
ence to  the  many  below  as  to  the  One  above 
him,  the  supreme  intelligence  which  appre- 
hends all  things  in  their  absolute  truth,  an 
ultimate  view  ever  aspired  to,  if  but  partially 
attained,  by  the  poet's  soul." 

Browning  may  be  said  to  have  carried  to 
its  flood  tide  the  "Liberal  Movement  in 
English  Literature,"  as  Courthope  calls  it, 
inaugurated  at  the  dawn  of  the  century  by 
the  Lake  School,  which  reacted  against  the 
correct  school  of  Dry  den  and  Pope.  Along 
with  the  earlier  poets  of  the  century  he 
shared  lack  of  appreciation  at  the  hands  of 
critics  in  general.  The  critics  had  been  bred 
in  the  school  of  the  eighteenth  century,  and 
naturally  would  be  incapable  of  understanding 
a  man  whose  thought  was  permeated  with 
the  doctrines  of  evolution,  then  an  unknown 
quantity  except  to  the  elect  in  scientific 
circles,  and  not  to  become  the  possession  of 
the  thinking  world  at  large  until  beyond  the 


246   BROWNING  AND  HIS  CENTURY 

middle  of  the  century;  whose  soul  was  full 
of  the  ardor  of  democracy,  shown  not  only 
in  his  choice  and  treatment  of  subjects,  but 
in  his  reckless  independence  of  all  the  shibbo- 
leths of  the  past;  and  whose  liberalness  in  the 
treatment  of  moral  and  religious  problems 
was  such  as  to  scandalize  many  in  an  age 
when  the  law  forbade  that  a  man  should 
marry  his  deceased  wife's  sister,  and  when 
the  Higher  Criticism  of  the  Bible  had  not  yet 
migrated  to  England  from  Germany;  and, 
finally,  whose  style  was  everything  that  was 
atrocious  because  entirely  different  from  any- 
thing they  had  seen  before. 

The  century  had  to  grow  up  to  him.  It  is 
needless  to  say  that  it  did  so.  Just  as  out 
of  the  turmoil  of  conflicting  scientific  and 
religious  thought  has  emerged  a  serene  belief 
in  man's  spiritual  destiny,  so  out  of  the  turmoil 
of  conflicting  schools  of  criticism  has  arisen  a 
perception  of  the  value  of  the  new,  the 
original,  the  different  in  art.  Critics  begin  to 
apply  the  principles  of  evolution  to  their 
criticism  as  Browning  applied  it  to  his  art, 
with  the  result  that  they  no  longer  measure 
by  past  standards  of  art  but  by  relating  the 
art  to  the  life  of  the  time  in  its  various  mani- 
festations, not  forgetting  that  the  poet  or 
the  dramatist  may  have  a  further  vision  of 


ART  SHIBBOLETHS  247 

what  is  to  come  than  any  other  man  of  his 
age. 

The  people  first,  for  the  most  part,  found 
out  that  here  in  Browning's  work  was  a  new 
force,  and  calmly  formed  themselves  into 
groups  to  study  what  manner  of  force  it  might 
be,  regardless  of  the  sneers  of  newspaperdom 
and  conventional  academies.  And  gradually 
to  the  few  appreciative  critics  of  the  early 
days  have  been  added  one  authoritative  voice 
after  another  until  the  chorus  of  praise  has 
become  a  large  one,  and  Browning,  though 
later  than  any  great  poet  of  the  century,  is 
coming  into  his  own. 

In  a  certain  chart  of  English  literature 
with  which  I  am  acquainted,  wherein  the 
poets  are  graphically  represented  in  mountain 
ranges  with  peaks  of  various  heights,  Tenny- 
son is  shown  as  the  towering  peak  of  the 
Victorian  Era,  while  Browning  is  a  sturdy 
but  much  lower  peak  with  a  blunted  top. 
This  is  quite  symbolic  of  the  general  attitude 
toward  Browning  at  the  end  of  the  century, 
for,  with  all  the  appreciation,  there  has  been 
on  the  part  of  authority  a  disinclination  to 
assign  to  him  the  chief  place  among  the  poets 
of  the  Victorian  Era.  Courthope,  who  most 
of  the  time  preserves  a  remarkable  reticence 
upon  Browning,  voices  this  general  attitude 


248   BROWNING  AND  HIS  CENTURY 

in  a  remark  ventured  upon  in  one  of  his 
lectures  in  1900.  He  says: 

"No  one  who  is  capable  of  appreciating 
genius  will  refuse  to  admire  the  powers  of 
this  poet,  the  extent  of  his  sympathy  and 
interest  in  external  things,  the  boldness  of 
his  invention,  the  energy  of  his  analysis,  the 
audacity  of  his  experiments.  But  so  abso- 
lutely does  he  exclude  all  consideration  for 
the  reader  from  his  choice  of  subject,  so 
arbitrarily,  in  his  treatment  of  his  themes, 
does  he  compel  his  audience  to  place  them- 
selves at  his  own  point  of  view,  that  the  life 
of  his  art  depends  entirely  upon  his  own 
individuality.  Should  future  generations  be 
less  inclined  than  our  own  to  surrender  their 
imagination  to  his  guidance,  he  will  not  be 
able  to  appeal  to  them  through  that  element 
of  life  which  lies  in  the  Universal." 

To  the  present  writer  this  seems  simply 
like  a  confession  on  Courthope's  part  that 
he  was  unable  to  perceive  in  Browning  the 
elements  of  the  Universal  which  are  most 
assuredly  there,  and  which  were  fully  recog- 
nized by  a  Scotch  writer,  Dawson,  at  the 
same  time  that  Courthope  was  questioning 
his  power  to  hold  coming  generations. 

"The  fashions  of  the  world  may  change," 
writes  Dawson,  "and  the  old  doubts  may 


ART  SHIBBOLETHS  249 

wear  themselves  out  and  sink  like  shadows 
out  of  sight  in  the  morning  of  a  stronger 
faith;  but  even  so  the  world  will  still 
turn  to  the  finer  poems  of  Browning  for 
intellectual  stimulus,  for  the  purification  of 
pity  and  of  pathos,  for  the  exaltation  of 
hope. 

"Or  if  the  darkness  still  thickens,  all  the 
more  will  men  turn  to  this  strong  man  of  the 
race,  who  has  wrestled  and  prevailed;  who  has 
illumined  with  imaginative  insight  the  deepest 
problems  of  the  ages;  who  has  made  his  poetry 
not  merely  the  vehicle  of  pathos,  passion, 
tenderness,  fancy,  and  imagination,  but  also 
of  the  most  robust  and  masculine  thought. 
He  has  written  lyrics  which  must  charm  all 
who  love,  epics  which  must  move  all  who 
act,  songs  which  must  cheer  all  who  suffer, 
poems  which  must  fascinate  all  who  think; 
and  when  'Time  hath  sundered  shell  from 
pearl/  however  stern  may  be  the  scrutiny,  it 
may  be  said  that  there  will  remain  enough 
of  Robert  Browning  to  give  him  rank  among 
the  greatest  of  poets,  and  secure  for  him  the 
sure  reward  of  fame." 

But  it  is  to  France  we  must  go  for  the  surest 
authoritative  note  —  that  land  of  the  Acad- 
emy and  correct  taste  which  hums  and  hahs 
over  its  own  Immortals  in  proverbially  unpen- 


250   BROWNING  AND  HIS  CENTURY 

etrating  conclave.  No  less  a  man  than  Taine 
declares  that  Browning  stands  first  among 
English  poets  —  "the  most  excellent  where 
excellence  is  greatness,  the  most  gifted  where 
genius  is  a  common  dower." 

While  there  can  be  no  doubt  that  Browning 
outdid  all  the  other  great  poets  of  his  time 
in  "azure  feats,"  in  developing  an  absolutely 
self-centered  ideal  of  art,  which  is  yet  so  true 
to  the  ultimate  tendencies  of  the  century, 
indeed  to  those  of  all  time,  for  evolution  and 
democracy  are  henceforth  the  torch-bearers 
of  the  human  soul  —  each  of  the  other 
half-dozen  or  so  greatest  poets  had  dis- 
tinct and  independent  individualities  which 
were  more  nearly  the  outcome  of  the  cur- 
rent tendencies  of  the  time  than  Brown- 
ing's. 

Tennyson  was  equally  familiar  with  the 
thought  and  much  more  familiar  with  the 
politics  of  the  day,  but  there  is  an  infinite 
difference  in  their  attitude.  Browning,  if  I 
may  be  excused  for  quoting  one  of  Shake- 
speare's most  abused  phrases,  rides  over  the 
century  like  a  "naked  new-born  babe  striding 
the  blast."  Tennyson  ambles  through  it  on 
a  palfrey  which  has  a  tendency  to  flounder 
into  every  slough  of  despond  it  comes  to. 
This  may  seem  to  be  putting  it  rather  too 


ALFRED  TENNYSON 


ART  SHIBBOLETHS  251 

strongly,  but  is  it  not  true?  Browning  has 
the  vision  belonging  to  the  latest  child  of 
time.  He  never  follows;  he  leads.  With  his 
eyes  fixed  upon  a  far-off  future  where  man 
shall  be  man  at  last,  he  faces  every  problem 
with  the  intrepidity  of  an  (Edipus  confronting 
the  Sphynx.  The  mystery  of  its  riddles  has 
no  terrors  for  him.  It  is  given  to  him  as  to 
few  others  to  see  the  ineffable  beauty  of  life's 
mystery,  the  promise  it  holds  out  of  eternal 
joy.  While  he  frequently  discourses  upon 
the  existence  of  evil,  he  never  for  a  moment 
admits  any  doubt  into  his  own  utmost  soul 
of  the  beneficent  part  evil  is  meant  to  play 
in  the  molding  of  human  destinies.  Mr. 
Santayana  has  called  him  a  barbarous  poet. 
In  a  certain  sense  he  is,  if  to  be  born  among 
the  first  on  a  new  plane  of  psychic  perception 
where  of  no  account  become  the  endless 
metaphysical  meanderings  of  the  intellect, 
which  cry  "proof,  proof,  where  there  can  be 
no  proof,"  is  barbarous.  It  was  doubtless 
largely  owing  to  this  power  of  vision  reminding 
us  again  somewhat  of  the  child's  in  Maeter- 
linck's "Les  Aveugles"  which  kept  Browning 
from  tinkering  in  the  half-measures  of  the 
political  leaders  of  his  time.  His  plane  is 
not  unlike  that  of  his  own  Lazarus,  about 
whom  the  Arab  physician  says: 


252   BROWNING  AND  HIS  CENTURY 

"The  man  is  witless  of  the  size,  the  sum, 
The  value  in  proportion  of  all  things, 
Or  whether  it  be  little  or  be  much. 
Discourse  to  him  of  prodigious  armament 
Assembled  to  besiege  his  city  now, 
And  of  the  passing  of  a  mule  with  gourds  — 
'Tis  one!     Then  take  it  on  the  other  side, 
Speak  of  some  trifling  fact,  —  he  will  gaze  rapt 
With  stupor  at  its  very  littleness, 
(For  as  I  see)  as  if  in  that  indeed 
He  caught  prodigious  import,  whole  results; 
And  so  will  turn  to  us  the  bystanders 
In  ever  the  same  stupor  (note  this  point) 
That  we,  too,  see  not  with  his  opened  eyes. " 

The  import  of  an  event  is  everything. 
Large  imports  may  lurk  more  surely  in  the 
awakening  of  some  obscure  soul  than  in  the 
pageantry  of  law  bringing  a  tardy  and  wholly 
inadequate  measure  of  justice  to  humanity. 
Though  Tennyson  talks  of  the  "far-off  divine 
event"  he  has  no  burning  conviction  of  it 
and  does  not  ride  toward  it  with  triumph 
in  his  eye  and  flaming  joy  in  his  soul.  As  he 
ambles  along,  steeping  himself  in  the  science 
of  the  time,  its  revelations  make  him  nervous; 
he  falls  into  doubt  from  which  he  can  only 
extricate  himself  by  holding  on  to  belief, 
a  very  different  thing  from  Browning's 
vision. 

Thus  it  happens  that  Tennyson  voices  the 


ART  SHIBBOLETHS  253 

feelings  of  an  immense  class  of  cultured  people, 
who  have  gone  through  the  century  in  the 
same  ambling  fashion,  a  prey  to  its  fears, 
intellectual  enough  to  see  the  truths  of 
science,  but  not  spiritual  enough  to  see  the 
import  of  the  dawn  of  the  new  day. 

Tennyson,  then,  quite  of  and  in  his  time, 
would  desire  above  all  things  to  appeal  to 
it  as  it  appealed  to  him.  He  waxes  enthusi- 
astic over  conventional  politics,  he  treats  his 
social  problems  so  entirely  in  accordance 
with  the  conventions  of  the  day  that  they 
are  not  problems  at  all,  and  he  is  quite  in 
love  with  the  beauty  of  aristocratic  society, 
though  he  occasionally  descends  to  the  people 
for  a  subject.  These  are  all  entirely  suffi- 
cient reasons  for  his  popularity  as  a  poet 
during  his  life,  further  emphasized  by  the 
added  fact  that  having  no  subject  matter 
(that  is  thought-content)  wherewith  to  startle 
the  world  by  strangeness,  he  took  the  wiser 
part  of  delighting  them  with  his  exquisite 
music. 

Though  so  satisfactory  a  representative  of 
his  times,  he  did  outrage  one  of  the  shibbo- 
leths of  the  critics  in  his  efforts  to  find  a  new 
and  richer  music  than  poets  had  before  used 
by  bringing  scientific  imagery  into  his  verse. 
Of  all  the  absurd  controversies  indulged  in 


254   BROWNING  AND  HIS  CENTURY 

by  critics,  the  most  absurd  is  that  fought  out 
around  the  contention  that  science  and  poetry 
cannot  be  made  to  harmonize.  Wordsworth 
was  keen  enough  to  see  this  before  the  rest 
of  the  world  and  prophesied  in  the  preface  to 
his  "Lyrical  Ballads"  that  science  would  one 
day  become  the  closest  of  allies  to  poetry, 
and  Tennyson  was  brilliant  enough  to  seize 
the  new  possibilities  in  scientific  language 
with  a  realization  that  nature  imagery  might 
almost  be  made  over  by  the  use  in  describing 
it  of  scientific  epithets.  A  famous  illustra- 
tion of  the  happy  effects  he  produced  by  these 
means  is  in  the  lines  'Move  eastward  happy 
Earth  and  round  again  to-night."  His  obser- 
vation of  Nature,  moreover,  had  a  scientific 
accuracy,  which  made  possible  far  more  deli- 
cate and  individual  descriptions  of  Nature's 
aspects  than  had  been  produced  before.  It 
was  also  a  happy  thought  for  him  to  weave 
so  much  of  his  poetry  around  the  Arthurian 
legends.  Beautiful  in  themselves,  they  came 
nearer  home  than  classical  or  Italian  legends, 
and,  when  made  symbolic  of  an  ideal  which 
must  appeal  to  the  heart  of  every  cultured 
Englishman,  who  regarded  himself  as  a  sort 
of  prototype  of  the  blameless  King  Arthur, 
and  whose  grief  at  the  failure  of  the  social 
fabric  planned  by  him  would  be  as  poignant 


ART  SHIBBOLETHS  255 

as  that  of  the  King  himself,  they  carried  with 
them  a  romantic  and  irresistible  attraction. 

The  reasons  why  Tennyson  should  appeal 
especially  to  the  nineteenth  century  cultured 
and  highly  respectable  Englishman  far  out- 
weighed any  criticisms  that  might  be  made 
by  critics  on  his  departure  from  poetic  cus- 
toms of  the  past.  He  pleased  the  highest 
powers  in  the  land,  became  Laureate  and  later 
Lord  Tennyson.  He  will  therefore  always 
remain  the  poet  most  thoroughly  representa- 
tive of  that  especial  sort  of  beauty  belonging 
to  a  social  order  which  has  reached  a  climax 
of  refinement  and  intelligence,  but  which, 
through  its  very  self-satisfaction,  cuts  itself 
off  from  a  perception  of  the  true  value  of  the 
new  forces  coming  into  play  in  the  on-rushing 
stream  of  social  development. 

The  other  poets  who  divide  with  Browning 
and  Tennyson  the  highest  honors  of  the 
Victorian  Era  are  Landor,  Arnold,  Rossetti, 
Swinburne,  Morris,  Mrs.  Browning,  George 
Meredith. 

Landor  and  Arnold  preserved  more  than 
any  of  the  others  a  genuine  classical  aroma  in 
their  verse,  and  on  this  account  have  always 
been  delighted  in  by  a  few.  After  all,  the 
people  may  not  immediately  accept  a  poet  of 
too  great  independence,  but  they  are  least  of 


256   BROWNING  AND  HIS  CENTURY 

all  likely  to  grow  enthusiastic  over  anything 
reactionary  either  in  style  or  thought.  Ro- 
mantic elements  of  not  too  startling  a  charac- 
ter win  the  favor  of  most  readers. 

Though  classic  in  style  both  these  poets 
reflected  phases  of  the  century's  thought. 
Landor  differed  from  Browning  in  the  fact 
that  he  frequently  expressed  himself  vigor- 
ously upon  the  subject  of  current  politics. 
His  political  principles  were  not  of  the  most 
advanced  type,  however.  He  believed  in  the 
notion  of  a  free  society,  but  seems  to  have 
thought  the  best  way  of  attaining  it  would  be 
a  commonwealth  in  which  the  wise  should 
rule,  and  see  that  the  interests  of  all  should 
be  secured.  Still  his  insistence  upon  liberty, 
however  old-fashioned  his  ideas  of  the  means 
by  which  it  should  be  maintained,  puts  him  in 
the  line  of  the  democratic  march  of  the  century. 

Swinburne  calls  him  his  master,  and  repre- 
sents himself  in  verse  as  having  learned 
ma*ny  wise  and  gracious  things  of  him,  but  his 
thought  was  not  sufficiently  progressive  to 
triumph  over  the  classicism  of  his  style  in 
an  age  of  romantic  poetry,  though  there  will 
always  be  those  who  hold  on  to  the  shibboleth 
that,  after  all,  the  classic  is  the  real  thing  in 
poetry,  never  realizing  that  where  the  roman- 
tic is  old  enough,  it,  too,  becomes  classic. 


ART  SHIBBOLETHS  257 

Matthew  Arnold  stands  in  poetry  where 
men  like  Huxley  and  Clifford  stood  in  science, 
who,  Childe-Roland  like,  came  to  the  dark 
tower,  calmly  put  the  slug  horn  to  their  lips 
and  blew  a  blast  of  courage.  Science  had 
undermined  their  belief  in  a  future  life  as 
well  as  destroying  the  revealed  basis  of  moral 
action.  In  such  a  man  the  intellectual 
nature  overbalances  the  intuitional,  and  when 
inherited  belief  based  on  authority  is  de- 
stroyed, there  is  nothing  but  the  habit  of 
morality  left. 

Arnold  has  had  the  sympathy  of  those  who 
could  no  longer  believe  in  their  revealed 
religion,  but  who  loved  it  and  regretted  its 
passing  away  from  them.  He  gives  expres- 
sion to  this  feeling  in  lines  like  these: 

"The  sea  of  faith 

Was  once,  too,  at  the  full,  and  round  earth's  shore 
Lay  like  the  folds  of  a  bright  girdle  furl'd. 
But  now  I  only  hear 
Its  melancholy,  long,  withdrawing  roar, 
Retreating,  to  the  breath 
Of  the  night-wind,  down  the  vast  edges  drear 
And  naked  shingles  of  the  world. " 

The  regret  for  something  beautiful  that  is 
gone  is  capable  of  exquisite  poetic  treatment, 
but  it  is  not  an  abiding  note  of  the  century. 
It  represents  only  one  phase  of  its  thought, 


258   BROWNING  AND  HIS  CENTURY 

and  that  a  transcient  one,  because  it  could 
be  felt  with  poignancy  only  by  those  whose 
lives  were  rudely  shaken  by  the  destruction 
of  the  ideal  in  which  they  had  been  bred  and 
in  which  they  devoutly  believed.  Arnold's 
sympathetic  treatment  of  this  phase  of  doubt 
seems,  however,  to  have  been  of  incalculable 
service  to  those  who  felt  as  he  did.  It 
softened  the  anguish  of  the  shock  to  have  not 
only  the  beauty  of  the  past  dwelt  upon,  but 
to  have  the  beauty  of  courage  in  the  face 
of  a  destroyed  ideal  erected  into  a  new  ideal 
for  living  brave  and  noble  lives.  In  "Stanzas 
from  the  Grande  Chartreuse"  is  a  fine  example 
of  the  beauty  which  may  be  imparted  to  a 
mood  as  melancholy  as  could  well  be  imagined : 

"Not  as  their  friend,  or  child,  I  speak! 

But  as,  on  some  far  northern  strand, 
Thinking  of  his  own  Gods,  a  Greek 

In  pity  and  mournful  awe  might  stand 
Before  some  fallen  Runic  stone  — 
For  both  were  faiths,  and  both  are  gone. 

"Wandering  between  two  worlds,  one  dead 

The  other  powerless  to  be  born, 
With  nowhere  yet  to  rest  my  head, 

Like  these,  on  earth  I  wait  forlorn, 
Their  faith,  my  tears,  the  world  deride  — 
I  come  to  shed  them  at  their  side. " 

Such  hope  as  he  has  to  offer  comes  out  in 


ART  SHIBBOLETHS  259 

stanzas  like  the  following,  but  all  is  dependent 
upon  strenuous  living: 

"No,  no!  the  energy  of  life  may  be 
Kept  on  after  the  grave,  but  not  begun; 
And  he  who  flagg'd  not  in  the  earthly  strife, 
From  strength  to  strength  advancing  —  only  he, 
His  soul  well-knit,  and  all  his  battle  won, 
Mounts,  and  that  hardly,  to  eternal  life. " 

Nor  shall  better  days  on  earth  come  with- 
out struggle  since  life 

"Is  on  all  sides  o'ershadowed  by  the  high 
Uno'erleaped  Mountains  of  Necessity, 
Sparing  us  narrower  margin  than  we  deem. 
Nor  will  that  day  dawn  at  a  human  nod, 
When,  bursting  through  the  network,  superposed 
By  selfish  occupation  —  plot  and  plan, 
Lust,  avarice,  envy-liberated  man, 
Ah1  difference  with  his  fellow-mortal  closed, 
Shall  be  left  standing  face  to  face  with  God. " 

Though  Arnold  was  sternly  criticised  he  had 
before  the  end  of  the  century  been  accorded 
his  proper  place  as  a  poet,  which  was  that  of 
the  chief  poet  between  the  greatest  lights 
of  the  century,  Browning  and  Tennyson  and 
the  pre-Raphaelite  group.  Gosse,  with  more 
penetration  than  can  always  be  accorded  to 
him,  declares  that  "His  devotion  to  beauty, 
the  composure,  simplicity  and  dignity  of  his 


260   BROWNING  AND  HIS  CENTURY 

temper,  and  his  deep  moral  sincerity  gave  to 
his  poetry  a  singular  charm  which  may  prove 
as  durable  as  any  element  in  modern  verse." 

The  phase  of  romanticism  carried  to  its 
climax  by  the  pre-Raphaelite  poets  Rossetti 
and  his  sister,  Morris  and  Swinburne  had,  like 
the  work  of  Tennyson,  its  full  recognition,  in 
its  own  time,  because  these  poets,  like  him, 
have  put  into  exquisite  music  romantic  sub- 
jects derived  both  from  the  classics  and  from 
mediaeval  legend.  The  new  note  of  sensuous- 
ness,  due  largely  to  the  Italian  influence  of 
Rossetti,  with  his  sensuous  temperament,  his 
intensity  of  passion  and  his  love  of  art,  and 
also  in  Morris  and  Swinburne  to  their  pagan 
feeling,  one  of  the  elements  inaugurated  by 
the  general  breaking  down  of  orthodox  relig- 
ious ideals  through  the  encroachments  of 
science,  does  not  seem  to  have  affected  their 
popularity. 

As  there  were  those  who  would  sympathize 
with  the  Tennysonian  attitude  toward  doubt, 
and  those  who  would  sympathize  with  Mat- 
thew Arnold's,  there  were  others  to  feel  like 
Swinburne,  pantheistic,  and,  like  Morris,  ut- 
terly hopeless  of  a  future,  while  others  again 
might  criticise  the  pagan  feeling,  but,  with  their 
inheritance  of  beauty  from  Tennyson  and  his 
predecessors  of  the  dawn  of  the  century,  would 


A.  C.  SWINBURNE 


ART  SHIBBOLETHS 

delight  in  these  new  developments  of  the 
romantic  spirit. 

Ruskin  is  said  to  have  been  the  original 
inspirer  of  these  four  poets,  though  Fitz- 
Gerald's  "Rubaiyat"  of  Omar  Khayyam  was 
not  without  its  influence.  But  as  Edmund 
Gosse  says,  "The  attraction  of  the  French 
romances  of  chivalry  for  William  Morris,  of 
Tuscan  painting  for  D.  G.  Rossetti,  of  the  spirit 
of  English  Gothic  architecture  for  Christina 
Rossetti,  of  the  combination  of  all  these  with 
Greek  and  Elizabethan  elements  for  Swin- 
burne, were  to  be  traced  back  to  start  — 
words  given  by  the  prophetic  author  of  the 
"Seven  Lamps  of  Architecture." 

Though  the  first  books  of  this  group  of 
poets,  the  "Defence  of  Guenevere"  (1858), 
"Goblin  Market,"  "Early  Italian  Poets," 
"Queen  Mother  and  Rosamond"  (1861),  did 
not  make  any  impression  on  the  public,  with 
the  publication  of  Swinburne's  "Atalanta  in 
Calydon"  an  interest  was  awakened  which 
reached  a  climax  with  the  publication  of  Ros- 
setti's  poems  in  1870.  Rossetti  had  thrown 
these  poems  into  his  wife's  grave,  as  the  world 
knows,  but  was  prevailed  upon  to  have  them 
recovered  and  published. 

In  the  success  of  this  group  was  vindicated 
at  last  the  principles  of  the  naturalists  of  the 


262   BROWNING  AND  HIS  CENTURY 

dawn  of  the  century.  Here  was  a  mixture  of 
color,  of  melody,  of  mysticism,  of  sensuousness, 
of  elaboration  of  form  which  carried  original- 
ity and  independence  as  far  as  it  could  well 
go  in  a  direction  which  painted  life  primarily 
from  the  outside.  But  when  this  brilliant 
culminating  flash  of  the  early  school  of  Coler- 
idge and  Keats  began  to  burn  itself  out,  there 
was  Tennyson,  who  might  be  called  the  con- 
servative wing  of  the  romantic  movement, 
dominant  as  ever,  and  Browning,  the  militant 
wing,  advanced  from  his  mid-century  obscurity 
into  a  flood-tide  of  appreciation  which  was 
to  bear  him  far  onward  toward  literary  pre- 
eminence, placing  him  among  the  few  greatest 
names  in  literature. 

The  originality  of  the  pre  -  Raphaelites 
grew  out  of  their  welding  of  romantic,  clas- 
sical, and  mediaeval  elements,  tempered  in 
each  case  by  the  special  mental  attitude  of 
the  poet. 

Rossetti  and  his  brother  artists,  Millais 
and  Holman  Hunt,  who  founded  the  pre- 
Raphaelite  brotherhood  of  painters,  pledged 
themselves  to  the  fundamental  principle  laid 
down  by  Rossetti  in  the  little  magazine  they 
started  called  the  Germ.  This  new  creed  was 
simple  enough  and  ran:  "The  endeavor  held 
in  view  throughout  the  writings  on  art  will 


ART  SHIBBOLETHS'  263 

be  to  encourage  and  enforce  an  entire  adherence 
to  the  simplicity  of  Nature." 

In  their  interpretation  and  development  of 
this  simple  principle,  artists  and  the  poets  who 
joined  them  differentiated  from  one  another 
often  to  a  wide  extent.  In  Rosetti,  it  becomes 
an  adoration  of  the  beauty  of  woman  ex- 
pressed in  ultra-sensuous  though  not  hi  sensual 
imagery,  combined  with  an  atmosphere  of  relig- 
ious wonder  such  as  one  finds  in  mediaeval 
poets,  of  which  "The  Blessed  Damozel" 
stands  as  a  typical  example.  In  it,  as  one 
appreciator  has  said,  all  the  qualities  of 
Rossetti's  poetry  are  found.  "  He  speaks  alter- 
nately like  a  seer  and  an  artist;  one  who  is 
now  bewitched  with  the  vision  of  beauty,  and 
now  is  caught  up  into  Paradise,  where  he 
hears  unutterable  things.  To  him  the  spir- 
itual world  is  an  intense  reality.  He  hears 
the  voices,  he  sees  the  presences  of  the  super- 
natural. As  he  mourns  beside  the  river  of 
his  sorrow,  like  Ezekiel,  he  has  his  visions  of 
winged  and  wheeling  glory,  and  leaning  over 
the  ramparts  of  the  world  his  gaze  is  fixed  on 
the  uncovered  mysteries  of  a  world  to  come. 
There  is  no  poet  to  whom  the  supernatural 
has  been  so  much  alive.  Religious  doubt 
he  seems  never  to  have  felt.  But  the  temper 
of  religious  wonder,  the  old,  childlike,  monk- 


264   BROWNING  AND  HIS  CENTURY 

ish  attitude  of  awe  and  faith  in  the  presence 
of  the  unseen,  is  never  absent  in  him.  The 
artistic  force  of  his  temperament  drives  him 
to  the  worship  of  beauty;  the  poetic  and  relig- 
ious forces  to  the  adoration  of  mystery." 

To  Swinburne  the  simplicity  of  nature  in- 
cluded the  utmost  lengths  to  which  eroti- 
cism could  go.  Upon  this  ground  he  has  been 
severely  censured  and  he  has  had  an  unfortu- 
nate influence  upon  scores  and  scores  of 
younger  writers  who  have  seemed  to  think 
that  the  province  of  the  poet  is  to  decry  the 
existence  of  sincere  affection,  and  who  in  their 
turn  have  exercised  actual  mischief  in  lowering 
social  standards. 

This  is  not  all  of  Swinburne,  however.  His 
superb  metrical  power  is  his  chief  contribution 
to  the  originality  of  this  group,  and  when  he 
developed  away  from  his  nauseating  eroticism, 
he  could  charm  as  no  one  else  with  his  delicious 
music,  though  it  often  be  conspicuous  for  its 
lack  of  richness  in  thought. 

His  fate  has  been  somewhat  different  from 
that  of  most  poets.  When  his  "Atalanta  in 
Calydon"  was  published  it  was  received  with 
enthusiasm,  but  the  volumes  overweighted 
with  eroticism  which  followed  caused  a  fierce 
controversy,  and  many  have  not  even  yet 
discovered  that  this  was  only  one  phase  of 


ART  SHIBBOLETHS  265 

Swinburne's  art,  and  that,  unfortunate  as  it 
is  in  many  respects,  it  was  a  phase  of  the 
century's  life  which  must  find  its  expression 
in  art  if  that  life  is  to  be  completely  given, 
and  that  it  was  a  passing  phase  Swinburne 
himself  proved  in  the  development  of  other 
phases  shown  in  his  interest  in  current  political 
situations,  his  enthusiasm  for  Italy  and  his 
later  expressions  of  high  moral  ideals,  as  well 
as  in  a  quasi-religious  attitude  of  mind,  not 
so  far  from  that  of  Emerson,  himself,  in 
which  strong  emphasis  is  placed  upon  the 
importance  of  the  individual,  and  upon  the 
unity  of  God  and  man. 

There  is  moral  courage  and  optimism  in 
the  face  of  doubt  of  a  high  order  in  the  fol- 
lowing lines: 

— "Are  ye  not  weary  and  faint  not  by  the  way 
Seeing  night  by  night  devoured  of  day  by  day, 
Seeing  hour  by  hour  consumed  in  sleepless  fire? 

Sleepless;  and  ye  too,  when  shall  ye,  too  sleep? 
—  We  are  weary  in  heart  and  head,  in  hands  and  feet, 
And  surely  more  than  all  things  sleep  were  sweet, 
Than  all  things  save  the  inexorable  desire 

Which  whoso  knoweth  shall  neither  faint  nor  weep. 

"Is  this  so  sweet  that  one  were  fain  to  follow? 
Is  this  so  sure  when  all  men's  hopes  are  hollow, 
Even  this  your  dream,  that  by  much  tribulation 

Ye  shall  make  whole  flawed  hearts,  and  bowed  necks 
straight? 


266    BROWNING  AND  HIS  CENTURY 

—  Nay  though  our  life  were  blind,  our  death  were  fruitless, 
Not  therefore  were  the  whole  world's  high  hope  rootless; 
But  man  to  man,  nation  would  turn  to  nation, 
And  the  old  life  live,  and  the  old  great  word  be  great. " 

But  Swinburne  in  his  farthest  reaches  of 
pantheistic  aspiration  is  to  be  seen  in  a  poem 
like  "Hertha": 

"I  am  that  which  began; 

Out  of  me  the  years  roll; 
Out  of  me  God  and  man; 
I  am  equal  and  whole; 

God  changes,  and  man,  and  the  form  of  them  bodily;  I  am  the 
soul. 

"The  tree  many-rooted 

That  swells  to  the  sky 
With  frondage  red-fruited 

The  life-tree  am  I; 

In  the  buds  of  your  lives  is  the  sap  of  my  leaves;  ye  shall  live 
and  not  die. 

"But  the  Gods  of  your  fashion 

That  take  and  that  give, 
In  their  pity  and  passion 

That  scourge  and  forgive, 

They  are  worms  that  are  bred  in  the  bark  that  falls  off;  they 
shall  die  and  not  live. 

"My  own  blood  is  what  stanches 

The  wounds  in  my  bark: 
Stars  caught  in  my  branches 

Make  day  of  the  dark, 

And  are  worshipped  as  suns  till  the  sunrise  shall  tread  out 
their  fires  as  a  spark. " 


DANTE  GABRIEL  ROSSETTI 


ART  SHIBBOLETHS  267 

Morris's  interpretation  of  pre-Raphaelite 
tenets  took  him  into  mediaeval  legend  and  the 
classics  for  his  subject  matter.  In  his  first  vol- 
ume, "The  Defence  of  Guenevere  and  Other 
Poems, "he  came  into  competition  with  Ten- 
nyson, who  was  at  the  same  time  issuing 
his  Arthurian  legends.  The  polish  of  Tenny- 
son's verse,  as  well  as  its  symbolical  meaning 
for  the  time,  was  more  acceptable  than  the 
actual  return  to  the  nature  of  the  fifteenth 
century,  and  this  the  first  volume  from  a 
pre-Raphaelite  was  hardly  noticed  by  the 
critics.  Morris  sulked  within  his  literary 
tents  for  ten  years  before  he  again  appeared, 
this  tune  with  "The  Life  and  Death  of  Jason" 
(1867),  which  immediately  became  popular. 
Later  came  the  "Earthly  Paradise."  These 
tales,  in  verse  noble  and  simple,  in  style  recall- 
ing the  tales  of  Chaucer,  yet  with  a  charm 
all  their  own,  in  which  the  real  men  and 
women  of  Chaucer  give  place  to  types,  have 
been  the  delight  of  those  who  like  to  find 
in  poetry  a  dreamland  of  romance  where 
they  may  enjoy  themselves  far  from  the 
problems  arid  toils  of  everyday  life.  He 
differs  from  all  the  other  poets  of  this  group 
in  his  lack  of  religious  hope.  His  mind  was 
of  the  type  that  could  not  stand  up  against 
the  undermining  influences  of  the  age:  hence 


268   BROWNING  AND  HIS  CENTURY 

world-weariness  and  despair  are  the  con- 
stantly recurring  notes. 

Mrs.  Browning  far  outdistanced  her  hus- 
band in  the  early  days  in  popularity.  She 
pleased  the  people  by  her  social  enthusiasm, 
a  characteristic  more  marked  in  her  verse 
than  in  that  of  any  of  the  poets  mentioned. 
The  critics  have  found  many  faults  in  her 
style,  mainly  those  growing  out  of  an  impas- 
sioned nature  which  carried  her  at  times 
beyond  the  realm  of  perfectly  balanced  art. 
But  even  an  English  critic  of  the  conservatism 
of  Edmund  Gosse  could  at  last  admit  that 
"In  some  of  her  lyrics  and  more  rarely  in  her 
sonnets  she  rose  to  heights  of  passionate 
humanity  which  place  her  only  just  below  the 
great  poets  of  her  country." 

Contemporary  criticism  of  "Aurora  Leigh," 
which  was  certainly  a  departure  both  in  form 
and  matter  from  the  accepted  standards,  was, 
on  the  whole,  just.  The  Quarterly  Review 
in  1862  said  of  it:  "This  *  Aurora  Leigh*  is  a 
great  poem.  It  is  a  wonder  of  art.  It  will 
live.  No  large  audience  will  it  have,  but 
it  will  have  audience;  and  that  is  more  than 
most  poems  have.  To  those  who  know  what 
poetry  is  and  in  what  struggles  it  is  born  — 
how  the  great  thoughts  justify  themselves  — 
this  work  will  be  looked  upon  as  one  of  the 


ART  SHIBBOLETHS  269 

wonders  of  the  age."  Mrs.  Browning  re- 
sembles her  husband  in  the  fact  that  she  does 
not  fit  into  the  main  line  of  evolution  of  the 
romantic  school,  but  is  an  individual  mani- 
festation of  the  romantic  spirit,  showing 
almost  as  great  freedom  from  the  trammels  of 
accepted  romanticism  as  Browning  does. 

The  writer  of  the  century  whose  experience 
as  a  novelist  almost  paralleled  that  of  Brown- 
ing as  poet  was  Meredith.  Because  of  his 
psychological  analysis  and  the  so-called  ob- 
scurity of  his  style,  he  waited  many  years  for 
recognition  and  finally  was  accepted  as  one 
of  the  most  remarkable  novelists  of  the  age. 
His  poetry,  showing  similar  tendencies,  and 
overshadowed  by  his  novels,  has  not  yet 
emerged  into  the  light  of  universal  appre- 
ciation. One  finds  it  even  ignored  altogether 
in  the  most  recent  books  of  English  literature, 
yet  he  is  the  author  of  one  of  the  most  remark- 
able series  of  sonnets  in  the  English  language, 
"Modern  Love,"  presenting,  as  it  does,  a 
vivid  picture  of  domestic  decadence  which 
forms  a  strange  contrast  to  Rossetti's  sonnets, 
"The  House  of  Life,"  indicating  how  many 
and  various  have  been  the  forces  at  work 
during  the  nineteenth  century  in  the  disinte- 
grating and  molding  of  social  ideals.  Mere- 
dith writes  of  'Hiding  the  Skeleton". 


270   BROWNING  AND  HIS  CENTURY 

"At  dinner  she  is  hostess,  I  am  host. 
Went  the  feast  ever  cheerfuller?    She  keeps 
The  topic  over  intellectual  deeps 
In  buoyancy  afloat.    They  see  no  ghost. 
With  sparkling  surface-eyes  we  ply  the  ball: 
It  is  in  truth  a  most  contagious  game; 
Hiding  the  Skeleton  shall  be  its  name. 
Such  play  as  this  the  devils  might  appall, 
But  here's  the  greater  wonder;  in  that  we, 
Enamor'd  of  our  acting  and  our  wits, 
Admire  each  other  like  true  hypocrites. 
Warm-lighted  glances,  Love's  Ephemeral, 
Shoot  gayly  o'er  the  dishes  and  the  wine. 
We  waken  envy  of  our  happy  lot. 
Fast  sweet,  and  golden,  shows  our  marriage-knot. 
Dear    guests,    you   now    have    seen    Love's    corpse-light 
shine!" 

Rossetti  writes  "Lovesight": 

"When  do  I  see  thee  most,  beloved  one? 
When  in  the  light  the  spirits  of  mine  eyes 
Before  thy  face,  their  altar,  solemnize 

The  worship  of  that  Love  through  thee  made  known? 

Or  when,  in  the  dusk  hours  (we  two  alone), 
Close-kiss'd  and  eloquent  of  still  replies 
Thy  twilight  —  hidden  glimmering  visage  lies, 

And  my  soul  only  sees  thy  soul  its  own? 
O  love,  my  love!  if  I  no  more  should  see 
Thyself,  nor  on  the  earth  the  shadow  of  thee, 

Nor  image  of  thine  eyes  in  any  spring,  — 

How  then  should  sound  upon  Life's  darkening  slope* 
The  ground-whirl  of  the  perish'd  leaves  of  Hope, 

The  wind  of  Death's  imperishable  wing?" 


ART  SHIBBOLETHS  271 

Browning's  criticism  of  painting  was  evi- 
dently much  influenced  by  the  pre-Raphaelites. 
Their  admiration  for  the  painters  who  pre- 
ceded Raphael,  revealing  as  it  did  to  them  an 
art  not  satisfied  with  itself,  but  reaching 
after  higher  things,  and  earnestly  seeking  to 
interpret  nature  and  human  life,  is  echoed 
in  his  "Old  Pictures  in  Florence,"  which 
was  written  but  six  years  after  Hunt,  Millais, 
and  Rossetti  formed  their  brotherhood.  In 
poetry,  they  did  not  eschew  classical  subjects, 
as  Browning  did  for  the  most  part,  but  they 
treated  these  subjects  in  a  romantic  spirit, 
and  so  removed  them  from  the  sort  of  stric- 
tures that  Browning  made  upon  the  perfection 
of  Greek  art. 

From  this  summary  of  the  chief  lines  of 
literary  development  in  the  nineteenth  cen- 
tury it  will  be  seen,  not  only  what  a  marvelous 
age  it  has  been  for  the  flowering  of  individual- 
ism in  literary  invention,  but  how  Browning 
has  surpassed  all  the  other  poets  of  note  in 
the  wideness  of  his  departure  from  accepted 
standards,  and  how  helpless  the  earlier  critics 
were  in  the  face  of  this  departure,  because  of 
their  dependence  always  upon  critical  shib- 
boleths—  in  other  words,  of  principles  not 
sufficiently  universal  —  as  their  means  of  meas- 
uring a  poet's  greatness.  Tennyson  and  the 


272   BROWNING  AND  HIS  CENTURY 

pre-Raphaelites  won  their  popularity  sooner 
among  critics  because  they  followed  logically 
in  the  line  of  development  inaugurated  by 
the  earlier  poets,  Wordsworth,  Shelley,  Keats, 
etc.,  whose  poetry  had  already  done  some  good 
work  in  breaking  down  the  school  of  Dryden 
and  Pope,  though  it  succeeded  only  in  erecting 
another  standard  not  sufficiently  universal 
to  include  Browning.  The  evolution  of  art 
forms,  a  principle  so  clearly  understood,  as 
we  have  shown  by  Browning,  has  never 
become  a  guiding  one  with  critics,  though 
Mr.  Gosse  in  his  "Modern  English  Literature" 
has  expressed  a  wish  that  the  principle  of 
evolution  might  be  adapted  to  criticism.  He 
has  evidently  felt  how  hopeless  is  the  task  of 
appraising  poets  by  the  old  individualistic 
method,  which,  as  he  says,  has  been  in  favor 
for  at  least  a  century.  It  possesses,  he 
declares,  considerable  effectiveness  in  adroit 
hands,  but  is,  after  all,  an  adaptation  of  the 
old  theory  of  the  unalterable  type,  merely  sub- 
stituting for  the  one  authority  of  the  ancients 
an  equal  rigidity  in  a  multitude  of  isolated  mod- 
ern instances.  For  this  inflexible  style  of  crit- 
icism he  proposes  that  a  scientific  theory  shall 
be  adopted  which  shall  enable  us  at  once  to  take 
an  intelligent  pleasure  in  Pope  and  in  Words- 
worth, in  Spenser  and  in  Swift.  He  writes: 


GEORGE  MEREDITH 


ART  SHIBBOLETHS  273 

"Herbert  Spencer  has,  with  infinite  courage, 
opened  the  entire  world  of  phenomena  to  the 
principles  of  evolution,  but  we  seem  slow  to  ad- 
mit them  into  the  little  province  of  aesthetics. 
We  cling  to  the  individualist  manner,  to  that 
intense  eulogy  which  concentrates  its  rays  on 
the  particular  object  of  notice  and  relegates  all 
others  to  proportional  obscurity.  There  are 
critics  of  considerable  acumen  and  energy  who 
seem  to  know  no  other  mode  of  nourishing  a 
talent  or  a  taste  than  that  which  is  pursued  by 
the  cultivators  of  gigantic  gooseberries.  They 
do  their  best  to  nip  off  all  other  buds,  that  the 
juices  of  the  tree  of  fame  may  be  concentrated 
on  their  favorite  fruit.  Such  a  plan  may  be 
convenient  for  the  purposes  of  malevolence,  and 
in  earlier  times  our  general  ignorance  of  the 
principles  of  growth  might  well  excuse  it.  But 
it  issurely  time  that  we  should  recognize  only 
two  criteria  of  literary  judgment.  The  first 
is  primitive,  and  merely  clears  the  ground 
of  rubbish;  it  is,  Does  the  work  before  us, 
or  the  author,  perform  what  he  sets  out  to 
perform  with  a  distinguished  skill  in  the 
direction  in  which  his  powers  are  exercised? 
If  not,  he  interests  the  higher  criticism  not 
at  all;  but  if  yes,  then  follows  the  second  test: 
Where,  in  the  vast  and  ever-shifting  scheme 
of  literary  evolution,  does  he  take  his  place, 


274   BROWNING  AND  HIS  CENTURY 

and  in  what  relation  does  he  stand,  not  to 
those  who  are  least  like  him,  but  to  those 
who  are  of  his  own  kith  and  kin?" 

With  such  principles  of  criticism  as  this, 
the  public  would  sooner  be  brought  to  an 
appreciation  of  all  that  is  best  worth  while 
in  literature,  instead  of  being  taken,  as  it  too 
often  is,  upon  a  wrong  scent  to  worship  at  the 
shrine  of  the  Nokes  and  Stokes,  who  simply 
print  blue  and  eat  the  turtles. 

If  Mr.  Gosse  had  himself  been  fully  imbued 
with  such  principles  would  he  have  made  the 
statement  quoted  in  chapter  two  in  regard  to 
Browning's  later  books?  And  should  we  have 
such  senseless  criticism  as  a  remark  which  has 
become  popular  lately,  and  which  I  believe 
emanated  from  a  university  in  the  South  — 
namely,  that  Browning  never  said  anything 
that  Tennyson  had  not  said  better?  As  an 
illustration  of  this  a  recent  critic  may  be 
quoted  who  is  entirely  scornful  of  the  person 
who  prefers  Browning's 

"God's  in  Ms  heaven,  all's  right  with  the  world" 
to  Tennyson's 

"And  hear  at  times  a  sentinel 

Who  moves  about  from  place  to  place, 
And  whispers  to  the  worlds  of  space 
In  the  deep  night  that  all  is  well. " 


ART  SHIBBOLETHS  275 

One  might  reply  to  this  that  it  is  a  matter 
of  taste  had  not  Courthope  shown  conclu- 
sively that  Matthew  Arnold's  criterion  of  crit- 
icism— namely,  that  a  taste  which  is  born  of  cul- 
ture is  the  only  certain  possession  by  which  the 
critic  can  measure  the  beauty  of  a  poet's  line — 
is  a  fallacy.  His  argument  is  worth  quoting: 

"You  have  stated  strongly  one  side  of  the  truth,  but  you 
have  ignored,  completely  ignored,  the  other.  You  have 
asserted  the  claims  of  individual  liberty,  and  up  to  a  certain 
point  I  agree  with  you.  I  do  not  deny  that  spiritual  liberty 
is  founded  on  consciousness,  and  hence  the  self-consciousness 
of  the  age  is  part  of  the  problem  we  are  considering.  I  do 
not  deny  that  the  prevailing  rage  for  novelty  must  also  be 
taken  into  account.  Liberty,  variety,  novelty,  are  all 
necessary  to  the  development  of  Art.  Without  novelty  there 
can  be  no  invention,  without  variety  there  can  be  no  charac- 
ter, without  liberty  there  can  be  no  life.  Life,  character, 
invention,  these  are  of  the  essence  of  Poetry.  But  while  you 
have  defended  with  energy  the  freedom  of  the  Individual, 
you  have  said  nothing  of  the  authority  of  society.  And  yet 
the  conviction  of  the  existence  of  this  authority  is  a  belief 
perhaps  even  more  firmly  founded  in  the  human  mind  than 
the  sentiment  as  to  the  rights  of  individual  liberty.  .  .  . 

The  great  majority  of  the  professors  of  poetry,  however 
various  their  opinions,  however  opposite  then*  tastes,  have 
felt  sure  that  there  was  in  taste,  as  in  science,  a  theory  of 
false  and  true;  in  art,  as  in  conduct,  a  rule  of  right  and  wrong. 
And  even  among  those  who  have  asserted  most  strongly  the 
inward  and  relative  nature  of  poetry,  do  you  think  there  was 
one  so  completely  a  skeptic  as  to  imagine  that  he  was  the  sole 
proprietor  of  the  perception  he  sought  to  embody  in  words; 
one  who  doubted  his  power,  by  means  of  accepted  symbols,  to 
communicate  to  his  audience  his  own  ideas  and  feelings  about 


276   BROWNING  AND  HIS  CENTURY 

external  things?  Yet  until  some  man  shall  have  been  found 
bold  enough  to  defend  a  thesis  so  preposterous,  we  must 
continue  to  believe  that  there  is  a  positive  standard,  by  which 
those  at  least  who  speak  a  common  language  may  reason 
about  questions  of  taste. 

Armed  with  this  gracious  permission  on 
the  part  of  a  professor  of  poetry,  we  may 
venture  to  reason  a  little  upon  the  foregoing 
quotations  from  Tennyson  and  Browning  to 
the  effect  that  the  person  of  really  good  taste 
might  like  each  of  them  in  its  place.  While 
Tennyson's  mystical  quatrain  is  beautiful 
and  quite  appropriate  in  such  a  poem  as 
"In  Memoriam,"  it  would  not  be  in  the  least 
appropriate  from  the  lips  of  a  little  silk- 
winding  girl  as  she  wanders  through  the  streets 
of  Asolo  on  a  sunny  morning  singing  her  little 
songs.  She  is  certainly  a  more  lifelike  child 
speaking  Browningese,  as  she  has  often  been 
criticised  for  doing,  than  she  would  be  if  upon 
this  occasion  she  spoke  in  a  Tennysonian 
manner.  That  her  song  has  touched  the 
hearts  of  the  twentieth  century,  if  it  was  not 
altogether  appreciated  in  the  nineteenth,  is 
proved  by  the  fact  that  it  is  one  of  the  most 
popular  songs  of  the  day  as  set  by  Mrs. 
H.  H.  A.  Beach,  and  that  the  line  is  heard 
upon  the  lips  of  people  to-day  who  do  not 
even  know  whose  it  is,  and  herein  lies  the 
ultimate  test  of  greatness. 


VL 

CLASSIC  SURVIVALS 

BEFORE  passing  in  review  Browning's 
treatment  of  classical  subjects  as  com- 
pared with  the  other  great  poets  of  the  nine- 
teenth century,  it  will  be  interesting  to  take  a 
glimpse  at  his  choice  of  subject-matter  in 
general. 

To  compare  Browning's  choice  of  subject- 
matter  with  that  of  other  English  poets  is  to 
strike  at  the  very  root  of  his  position  in  the 
chain  of  literary  development.  Subject- 
matter  is  by  no  means  simple  in  its  nature, 
but  as  a  musical  sound  is  composed  of  vibra- 
tions within  vibrations,  so  it  is  made  up  of  the 
complex  relations  of  body  and  spirit  —  the 
mere  external  facts  of  the  story  are  blended 
with  such  philosophical  undercurrent,  or  dra- 
matic motif,  or  unfolding  of  the  hidden  springs 
of  action  as  the  poet  is  able  to  insinuate  into  it. 

However  far  back  one  penetrates  in  the 
history  of  poetry,  poets  will  be  found  depend- 
ing largely  upon  previous  sources,  rather  than 
upon  their  own  creative  genius,  for  the  body 

277 


278   BROWNING  AND  HIS  CENTURY 

of  their  subject-matter,  until  the  question 
presents  itself  with  considerable  force  as  to 
who  could  have  been  the  mysterious  first 
poet  who  supplied  plots  to  the  rest  of  man- 
kind. Conjecture  is  obliged  to  play  a  part 
here,  as  it  does  wherever  human  origins  are 
in  question.  Doubtless,  this  first  poet  was 
no  separate  individual,  but  simply  the  ele- 
ments man  and  nature,  through  whose  action 
and  reaction  upon  each  other  grew  up  story- 
forms,  evidently  compounded  of  human  cus- 
toms, and  observed  natural  phenomena  such 
as  those  we  find  in  the  great  Hindu,  Greek, 
and  Teutonic  classics,  and  which  thus  crystal- 
lized became  great  well-springs  of  inspiration 
for  future  generations  of  poets. 

Each  new  poet,  however,  who  is  worthy  of 
the  name,  sets  up  his  own  particular  interplay 
with  man  and  nature;  and  however  much 
he  may  be  indebted  for  his  inspiration  to  past 
products  of  this  universal  law  of  action  and 
reaction,  he  is  bound  to  use  them  or  interpret 
them  in  a  manner  colored  by  his  own  personal 
and  peculiar  relations  with  the  universe. 

In  so  doing  he  supplies  the  more  important 
spiritual  side  of  subject-matter  and  becomes 
hi  very  truth  the  poet  or  maker,  to  that  extent 
at  least  which  Browning  himself  lays  down 
as  the  province  of  art  —  namely,  to  arrange, 


CLASSIC  SURVIVALS  279 

"Dissociate,  redistribute,  interchange 
Part  with  part:  lengthen,  broaden 
.     .     .     simply  what  lay  loose 
At  first  lies  firmly  after,  what  design 
Was  faintly  traced  in  hesitating  line 
Once  on  a  time  grows  firmly  resolute 
Henceforth  and  evermore." 

Sometimes  the  poet's  power  of  arranging 
and  redistributing  and  interchanging  carries 
him  upward  into  the  realm  of  ideas  alone, 
among  which  his  imagination  plays  in  absolute 
freedom;  he  throws  over  the  results  of  man's 
past  dallyings  with  Nature  and  makes  his 
own  terms  with  her,  and  the  result  is  an 
approach  to  absolute  creation. 

Except  in  the  case  of  lyric  poetry  the  in- 
stances where  there  have  been  no  suggestions 
as  to  subject-matter  are  rare  in  comparison 
with  those  where  the  subject-matter  has  been 
derived  from  some  source. 

Look,  for  instance,  at  the  father  of  English 
poetry,  Chaucer,  how  he  ransacked  French, 
Italian  and  Latin  literature  for  his  subject- 
matter,  most  conscientiously  carrying  out  his 
own  saying,  that 

"Out  of  olde  feldys  as  men  sey 

Comyth  all  this  newe  corn  from  yere  to  yere, 
And  out  of  olde  books  in  good  fey 
Cometh  all  this  new  science  that  men  alere. " 


280   BROWNING  AND  HIS  CENTURY 

How  external  a  way  he  had  of  working 
over  old  materials,  especially  in  his  earlier 
work,  is  well  illustrated  in  "The  Parliament 
of  Fowls,"  which  he  opens  by  relating  the 
dream  of  Scipio,  originally  contained  in 
Cicero's  treatise  on  the  "Republic,"  and 
preserved  by  Macrobius.  This  dream, 
which  tells  how  Africanus  appears  to  Scipio, 
and  carries  him  up  among  the  stars  of  the 
night,  shows  him  Carthage,  and  prophesies 
to  him  of  his  future  greatness,  tells  him  of 
the  blissful  immortal  life  that  is  in  store  for 
those  who  have  served  their  country,  points 
out  to  him  the  brilliant  celestial  fires,  and 
how  insignificant  the  earth  is  in  comparison 
with  them,  and  opens  his  ears  to  the  wondrous 
harmony  of  the  spheres  —  this  dream  is  as 
far  removed  from  the  main  argument  of  the 
poem  as  anything  well  could  be2  a  contest 
between  three  falcons  for  the  hand  of  a 
f  ormel.  The  bringing  together  of  such  diverse 
elements  presents  no  difficulties  to  the  child- 
like stage  of  literary  development  that  de- 
pends upon  surface  analogies  for  the  linking 
together  of  its  thoughts.  Just  as  talking 
about  his  ancestor,  the  great  Scipio  Africanus, 
with  the  old  King  Masinissa  caused  Scipio 
to  dream  of  him,  so  reading  about  this  dream 
caused  Chaucer,  who  has  to  close  his  book 


CLASSIC  SURVIVALS  281 

and  go  to  bed  for  want  of  a  light,  to  dream 
of  Scipio  Africanus  also,  who  "was  come  and 
stood  right  at  his  bedis  syde." 

Africanus  then  plays  the  part  of  conductor 
to  Chancer  in  a  manner  suggestive  not  only 
of  his  relations  to  Scipio,  but  of  Virgil's 
relation  to  Dante,  and  brings  him  to  the  great 
gateway  and  through  it  into  the  garden  of 
love.  The  description  is  of  the  temple  of 
Venus  in  Boccaccio's  "La  Teseide."  There 
Nature  and  the  "Fowls"  are  introduced  and 
described,  and  at  last  the  point  is  reached. 
Nature  proclaims  that  it  is  St.  Valentine's 
day,  and  all  the  fowls  may  choose  them  mates. 
The  royal  falcon  is  given  first  choice,  and 
chooses  the  lovely  formel  that  sits  upon 
Nature's  hand.  Two  other  ardent  falcons 
declare  their  devotion  to  the  same  fowl,  and 
Nature,  when  the  formel  declares  that  she 
will  serve  neither  Venus  nor  Cupid  and  asks 
a  respite  for  a  year,  decides  that  the  three 
shall  serve  their  lady  another  year  —  a  pretty 
allegory  supposed  to  refer  to  the  wooing  of 
Blanche  of  Lancaster  by  John  of  Gaunt. 

The  main  argument  of  this  poem,  when  it 
finally  is  reached  by  artificially  welding  to- 
gether rich  links  borrowed  from  other  poets, 
is  one  of  the  few  examples  in  Chaucer  of 
subject-matter  derived  direct  from  a  real 


282   BROWNING  AND  HIS  CENTURY 

event,  but  the  putting  of  it  in  an  allegorical 
form  at  once  lays  him  under  obligations  to 
his  poetic  predecessors,  not  only  on  Anglo. 
Saxon  soil,  but  in  France  and  Italy. 

His  most  important  contributions  as  an 
inventor  are,  of  course,  his  descriptions  of  the 
Canterbury  Pilgrims,  which  are  the  pure  out- 
come of  a  keen  observation  of  men  and  women 
at  first  hand.  So  lifelike  are  they  that  in 
them  he  has  made  the  England  of  the  four- 
teenth century  live  again.  But  how  small  a 
proportion  of  the  bulk  of  the  "Canterbury 
Tales"  is  contained  in  these  glimpses  of 
English  Ufe  and  manners.  It  is  but  the 
framework  upon  which  luxuriate  vines  of 
fancy  transplanted  from  many  another  gar- 
den, and  even  in  its  place  resembling,  if  not 
borrowed  from,  Boccaccio. 

The  thoroughly  human  instincts  of  the  poet 
assert  themselves,  however,  in  the  choice  of 
the  tales  which  he  puts  into  the  mouths  of 
his  pilgrims.  He  allows  a  place  to  the  crud- 
ities and  even  the  vulgarities  of  common 
stories  as  well  as  to  culture-lore.  The  magic 
of  the  East,  the  love  tales  of  Italy,  the  wisdom 
of  philosophers,  the  common  stories  of  the 
people,  all  give  up  their  wealth  to  his  gentle 
touch.  With  a  keen  sense  of  propriety  he, 
with  few  exceptions,  gives  each  one  of  his 


CLASSIC  SURVIVALS  283 

pilgrims  a  tale  suited  in  its  general  tendency 
to  the  character  of  its  narrator,  and  in  the 
critical  chatter  of  the  pilgrims  about  the  tales, 
reflects  not  only  his  own  tastes,  but  that  of 
the  times,  the  opinions  expressed  frequently 
being  most  uncomplimentary  in  their  tenor. 
In  fine,  the  life  of  reality  and  the  life  of 
books  is  spread  out  before  Chaucer,  and  his 
observation  of  both  is  keen  and  interested; 
and  this  it  is  which  makes  him  much  more  than 
the  "great  translator"  that  Eustace  Les 
Champs  called  him,  and  settles  the  nature  of 
the  "subtle  thing"  called  spirit  contributed 
by  the  individuality  of  the  poet  to  his  subject- 
matter.  He  brings  everything  within  the 
reach  of  human  sympathy,  because  his  way 
of  putting  a  story  into  his  own  words  is 
sympathetic.  He  was  a  combination  of  the 
story-teller,  the  scholar,  the  poet,  and  the 
critic.  As  a  scholar  he  brings  in  learned 
allusions  that  are  entirely  extraneous  to  the 
action  in  hand;  as  the  story-teller,  he  takes 
delight  in  the  tales  that  both  the  poet  and 
the  people  have  told;  as  the  poet,  his  imagina- 
tion dresses  up  a  story  with  a  fresh  environ- 
ment, often  anachronous,  and  sometimes  he 
alters  the  moral  tone  of  the  characters. 
Cressida  is  an  interesting  example  of  this. 
But  instead  of  the  characters  suggesting  by 


284   BROWNING  AND  HIS  CENTURY 

their  own  action  and  speech  all  the  needed 
moral,  Chaucer  himself  appears  ever  at  hand 
to  analyze  and  criticise  and  moralize,  though 
he  does  it  so  delightfully  that  one  hesitates 
to  call  him  didactic.  The  result  of  all  this 
is  that  the  external  form  and  the  underlying 
essence  of  his  subject-matter  are  not  com- 
pletely fused.  We  often  see  a  sort  of  guileless 
working  of  the  machinery  of  art,  yet  it  is 
true,  no  doubt,  though  perhaps  not  to  the 
extent  insisted  on  by  Morley,  that  he  has 
something  of  the  Shakespearian  quality  which 
enables  him  to  show  men  as  they  really  are, 
"wholly  developed  as  if  from  within,  not  as 
described  from  without  by  an  imperfect  and 
prejudiced  observer." 

In  his  great  work,  Spenser  is  no  less  depend- 
ent upon  sources  for  his  inspiration,  but 
there  is  a  marked  difference  in  his  use  of  them. 
Although  his  range  of  observation  is  much 
narrower  than  Chaucer's,  hardly  extending 
at  all  into  the  realm  of  actual  human  effort, 
yet  he  makes  an  advance  in  so  far  as  his 
powers  of  redistribution  are  much  greater 
than  Chaucer's. 

The  various  knights  of  the  "Fairy  Queen" 
and  their  exploits  are  not  modeled  directly 
upon  any  previous  stories,  but  they  are 
made  up  of  incidents  similar  to  those  found 


CLASSIC  SURVIVALS  285 

scattered  all  through  classic  lore;  and  as  his 
inspirations  were  drawn  in  most  cases  directly 
from  the  fountain-head  of  story  in  the  Greek 
writers  —  instead  of  as  they  filtered  through 
the  Latin,  Italian,  and  French,  with  the 
inevitable  accretions  that  result  from  migra- 
tions, —  and  from  the  comparatively  unal- 
loyed Arthurian  legends,  there  is  a  clearer 
reflection  in  them  of  the  cosmic  elements  that 
shine  through  both  the  Greek  and  Arthurian 
originals  than  is  found  in  Chaucer. 

Although  Spenser  was  certainly  unaware 
of  any  such  modern  refinement  of  the  my- 
thologist  as  a  solar  myth,  yet  the  "Fairy 
Queen'*  forms  a  curious  and  interesting  study 
on  account  of  the  survivals  everywhere  evi- 
dent of  solar  characteristics  in  his  characters 
and  plots.  Indeed  it  could  hardly  be  other- 
wise, considering  his  intention,  and  his  method 
of  carrying  it  out,  which  he,  himself,  explains 
in  his  quaint  letter  to  Sir  Walter  Raleigh — 
namely,  "to  fashion  a  gentleman  or  noble 
person  in  virtuous  and  gentle  discipline." 
He  goes  on: 

"I  close  the  history  of  King  Arthur  as  most  fit  for  the  ex- 
cellency of  his  person,  being  made  famous  by  many  men's 
former  works,  and  also  further  from  danger  and  envy  of  sus- 
picion of  present  time.  In  which  I  have  followed  all  the 
antique  poets  historical;  first  Homer,  who  in  the  person  of 


286   BROWNING  AND  HIS  CENTURY 

Agamemnon  and  Ulysses  hath  ensampled  a  good  governor 
and  a  virtuous  man,  the  one  in  his  'Iliad,'  the  other  in  his 
'Odyssey';  then  Virgil,  whose  like  intention  was  to  do  in  the 
person  of  JSneas:  After  him,  Ariosto  comprised  them  both 
in  his  Orlando,  and  lately  Tasso  dissevered  them  again,  and 
formed  both  parts  in  two  persons,  the  part  which  they  in 
Philosophy  call  Ethice  or  virtues  of  a  private  man,  colored  in 
his  Rinaldo,  the  other,  named  Politice,  in  his  Godfieldo.  By 
example  of  which  excellent  poets,  I  labor  to  portray  in 
Arthur  before  he  was  King,  the  image  of  a  brave  Knight 
perfected  in  the  twelve  private  moral  virtues  as  Aristotle 
hath  devised,  the  which  is  the  purpose  of  these  first  twelve 
books." 

In  the  fashioning  of  his  knight  he  took 
Arthur,  a  hero  whose  life  as  it  appears  in  the 
early  romances  is  inextricably  mingled  with 
solar  elements,  and  has  built  up  his  virtues 
upon  other  ancient  solar  heroes.  Here  are 
all  the  paraphernalia  of  solar  mythology: 
invincible  knights  with  marvelous  weapons, 
brazen  castles  guarded  by  dragons,  marriage 
with  a  beautiful  maiden  and  parting  from  the 
bride  to  engage  in  new  quests,  an  enchantress 
who  turns  men  into  animals,  even  the  outcast 
child;  but  none  of  the  incidents  appear  intact. 
It  is  as  if  there  had  been  a  great  explosion  in 
the  ancient  land  of  romance  and  that  in  the 
mending  up  of  things  the  separate  pieces  are 
all  recognizable,  although  all  joined  together 
in  a  different  pattern,  while  under  all  is  the 


CLASSIC  SURVIVALS  287 

allegory.  A  gentle  knight  is  no  longer  a 
solar  hero  as  set  forth  by  Max  Miiller  or  Cox, 
but  Holiness;  his  invincible  armor  is  not  the 
all-powerful  rays  of  the  sun,  but  truth;  the 
enchantress  not  night  casting  a  spell  over 
mortals,  but  sensuous  pleasure  entangling 
them. 

These  two  poets,  Chaucer  and  Spenser,  are 
prototypes  of  two  poet  types  of  two  poetical 
tendencies  that  have  gone  on  developing  side 
by  side  in  English  literature:  Chaucer,  demo- 
cratic, interested  supremely  in  the  personali- 
ties of  men  and  women,  portraying  the  real, 
and  Spenser,  aristocratic,  interested  in  imag- 
ing forth  an  ideal  of  manhood,  choosing  his 
subject-matter  from  sources  that  will  lend 
themselves  to  such  a  purpose;  Chaucer  draw- 
ing his  lessons  out  of  the  real  actions  of 
humanity;  Spenser  framing  his  story  so  that 
it  will  illustrate  the  moral  he  wishes  to  incul- 
cate. 

Shakespeare,  of  course,  ranges  himself  in 
line  with  Chaucer.  His  interest  centered  on 
character,  and  wherever  a  story  capable  of 
character  development  presented  itself,  that 
he  chose,  altered  it  in  outline  comparatively 
little,  and  when  he  did  so  it  was  in  order  to 
carry  forward  the  dramatic  motif  which  he 
infused  into  his  subject.  The  dramatic  form 


288   BROWNING  AND  HIS  CENTURY 

in  which  he  wrote  furnished  him  a  better 
medium  for  reaching  a  complete  welding  to- 
gether of  the  external  and  spiritual  side  of 
his  subject-matter.  Where  Chaucer  hinted  at 
the  possibilities  of  an  artistic  development  of 
character  that  would  cause  the  events  of  the 
story  to  appear  as  the  inevitable  outcome  of 
the  hidden  springs  of  action,  Shakespeare 
accomplished  it,  and  peopled  the  world  of 
imagination  with  group  after  group  of  living, 
acting  characters. 

In  the  nineteenth  century  Tennyson  and 
Browning  have  represented,  broadly  speaking, 
these  two  tendencies.  As  with  Spenser,  the 
classics  and  the  Arthurian  legends  have  been 
the  sources  from  which  Tennyson  has  drawn 
most  largely;  but  although  a  philosophical 
undercurrent  is  this  poet's  spiritual  addition 
to  the  subject-matter,  his  method  of  putting 
his  soul  inside  his  work  is  very  different  from 
Spenser's.  He  does  not  tear  the  old  myths  to 
pieces  and  join  them  together  again  after  a  pat- 
tern of  his  own  to  fit  his  allegorical  situation, 
but  keeps  the  events  of  his  stories  almost  un- 
changed, in  this  particular  resembling  Chaucer 
and  Shakespeare,  and  —  except  in  a  few 
instances,  such  as  Tithonus  and  Lucretius, 
where  the  classic  spirit  of  the  originals  is 
preserved  —  he  infuses  in  his  subject  a  vein 


CLASSIC  SURVIVALS  289 

of  philosophy,  illustrating  those  modern  ten- 
dencies of  English  thought  of  which  Tennyson, 
himself,  was  the  exemplar.  Even  when  in- 
venting subjects,  founded  upon  the  experiences 
of  everyday  life,  he  so  manipulates  the  story 
as  to  make  it  illustrate  some  of  his  favorite 
moral  maxims.  His  characters  do  not  act 
from  motives  which  are  the  inherent  neces- 
sities of  their  natures,  but  they  act  in  accord- 
ance with  Tennyson's  preconceived  notions  of 
how  they  ought  to  act.  He  manipulates  the 
elements  of  character  to  suit  his  own  view 
of  development,  just  as  Spenser  manipulated 
the  elements  of  the  story  to  suit  his  own 
allegorical  purpose. 

Browning  is  the  nineteenth-century  heir  of 
Chaucer;  but  it  is  doubtful  whether  Chaucer 
would  recognize  his  own  offspring,  so  remark- 
able has  the  development  been  in  those  five 
centuries.  With  Chaucer's  keen  interest  in 
human  nature  deepened  to  a  profound  insight 
into  the  very  soul  of  humanity,  and  the  added 
wealth  of  these  centuries  of  human  history, 
Browning  not  only  had  a  far  wider  range  of 
choice  in  subject-matter,  but  he  was  enabled 
to  instil  into  it  greater  intellectual  and  em- 
otional complexities. 

Rarely  has  he  treated  any  subject  that 
has  already  been  treated  poetically  unless 


290   BROWNING  AND  HIS  CENTURY 

we  except  the  transcripts  from  the  classics 
soon  to  be  considered.  Wherever  he  saw  an 
interesting  historical  personage,  interesting, 
not  on  account  of  his  brilliant  achievements 
in  the  eyes  of  the  world,  but  on  account  of 
potentialities  of  character,  such  a  one  he  has 
set  before  us  to  reveal  himself.  There  are 
between  twenty  and  thirty  portraits  of  this 
nature  in  his  work,  chosen  from  all  sorts  and 
conditions  of  men  —  men  who  stand  for  some 
phase  of  growth  in  human  thought;  and  always 
in  developing  a  personality  he  gives  the 
kernel  of  truth  upon  which  their  peculiar  point 
of  view  is  based.  Thus,  among  the  musical 
poems,  Abt  Vogler  speaks  for  the  intuition- 
alist  —  he  who  is  blessed  by  a  glimpse  of 
the  absolute  truth.  Charles  Avison,  on  the 
other  hand,  is  the  philosopher  of  the  relative 
in  music  and  the  arts  generally.  Among  the 
art  poems,  Fra  Lippo  Lippi  is  the  apostle 
of  beauty  in  realism,  Andrea  del  Sarto  the 
attainer  of  perfection  in  form.  In  the  relig- 
ious poems  the  Jewish  standpoint  is  illustrated 
in  "Saul"  and  "Rabbi  Ben  Ezra,"  the  Chris- 
tian in  the  portrait  of  John  in  "The  Death 
in  the  Desert";  the  empirical  reasoner  in 
"Paracelsus." 

This  is  only  one  of  Browning's  methods  in 
the  choice  and  use  of  subject-matter.     The 


CLASSIC  SURVIVALS  291 

characters  and  incidents  in  his  stories  are 
frequently  the  result  of  pure  invention,  but 
he  sets  them  in  an  environment  recreated 
from  history,  developing  their  individualities 
in  harmony  with  the  environment,  thus  giving 
at  one  stroke  the  spirit  of  the  time  and  the 
individual  qualities  of  special  representatives 
of  the  time.  Examples  of  this  are:  "My 
Last  Duchess,"  where  the  Duke  is  an  entirely 
imaginary  person  and  the  particular  incident 
is  invented,  but  he  is  made  to  act  and  talk 
in  a  way  perfectly  in  keeping  with  the  spirit 
of  the  time  —  mediaeval  Italy.  "Hugues  of 
Saxe-Gotha"  is  another  being  of  Browning's 
fancy,  who  yet  represents  to  perfection  the 
spirit  of  the  old  fugue  writers.  "Luria," 
"The  Soul's  Tragedy,"  "In  a  Balcony,"  all 
represent  the  same  method. 

Another  plan  pursued  by  the  poet  is  either 
to  invent  or  borrow  a  historical  personage 
into  whose  mouth  he  puts  the  defence  of 
some  course  of  action  or  ethical  standard 
that  may  or  may  not  be  founded  upon 
the  highest  ideals.  Sludge,  the  hero  of 
"Fifineat  the  Fair,"  Bishop  Blougram,  Hoh- 
enstiel-Schwangau,  range  themselves  in  this 
group. 

There  are  comparatively  few  cases  where 
he  has  taken  a  complete  story  and  developed 


292   BROWNING  AND  HIS  CENTURY 

its  spiritual  possibilities  without  much  change 
in  external  detail,  but  how  adequate  his  art 
was  to  such  ends,  "The  Ring  and  the  Book," 
"Inn  Album,"  "Two  Poets  of  Croisic,"  "Red 
Cotton  Nightcap  Country,"  the  historical 
dramas  of  "Strafford,"  and  "King  Victor  and 
King  Charles"  fully  prove,  including,  as  they 
do,  some  of  his  finest  masterpieces. 

History  and  story  have  furnished  many  of 
the  incidents  which  he  has  worked  up  in  his 
dramatic  lyrics  and  romances  like  "Clive," 
"Herve  Riel,"  "Donald,"  etc.  There  remains, 
however,  a  large  number  of  poems  containing 
some  of  Browning's  loveliest  work  in  which 
the  subject-matter  is,  as  far  as  we  know,  the 
creation  of  pure,  unadulterated  fancy.  "A 
Blot  in  the  'Scutcheon,"  "In  a  Balcony," 
"Colombe's  Birthday,"  "Childe  Roland," 
"James  Lee's  Wife"  are  some  of  them.  Even 
in  this  rapid  survey  of  the  field  the  fact  is 
patent  that  Browning's  range  of  subject- 
matter  is  infinitely  wider  and  his  method  of 
developing  it  far  more  varied  than  has  been 
that  of  any  other  English  poet.  He  seems 
the  first  to  have  completely  shaken  himself 
free  from  the  trammels  of  classic  or  mediaeval 
literature.  There  are  no  echoes  of  Arthur 
and  his  Knights  in  his  poetry,  the  shadows  of 
the  Greek  gods  and  goddesses  exert  no  spell  — 


CLASSIC  SURVIVALS  293 

except  in  the  few  instances  when  he  deliber- 
ately chose  a  Greek  subject. 

The  fact  that  Browning  was  so  free  from 
classical  influence  in  the  great  body  of  his 
work  as  compared  with  the  other  chief  poets 
of  the  nineteenth  century  gives  an  especial 
interest  to  those  poems  in  which  he  chose 
classical  themes  for  his  subjects.  There  are 
not  more  than  ten  all  told,  and  one  of  these 
is  a  translation,  yet  they  represent  some  of 
his  finest  and  most  original  work,  for  Browning 
could  not  touch  a  classical  theme  without 
infusing  into  it  that  grasp  and  insight  peculiar 
to  his  own  genius. 

His  first  and  most  conventionally  classical 
poem  is  the  fragment  in  "Men  and  Women," 
"Artemis  Prologizes,"  written  in  1842.  It 
was  to  have  been  the  introduction  to  a  long 
poem  telling  of  the  mad  love  of  Hippolytus 
for  a  nymph  of  Artemis,  after  that  goddess 
had  brought  about  his  resuscitation.  It  has 
been  suggested  by  Mr.  Boynton  in  an  inter- 
esting paper  that  Browning  shows  traces  of 
the  influence  of  Landor  in  his  poetry.  This 
fragment  certainly  furnishes  argument  for  this 
opinion,  though  it  has  a  strength  of  diction 
along  with  its  Greek  severity  and  terseness 
of  style  which  leads  to  the  conclusion  that 
the  influence  came  from  the  fountain  head 


294   BROWNING  AND  HIS  CENTURY 

of  Greek  poetry  itself  rather  than  through 
the  lesser  muse  of  this  nineteenth -century 
Greek. 

The  poem  is  said  to  have  been  begun  on 
a  sick-bed  and  when  the  poet  recovered  he 
had  forgotten  or  lost  interest  in  his  plans. 
This  is  to  be  regretted  for  if  he  had  continued 
as  he  began,  the  poem  would  have  stood 
unique  in  his  work  as  a  true  survival  of  Greek 
subject  wedded  with  classical  form  and  style, 
and  would  certainly  have  challenged  compari- 
son with  the  best  work  done  in  this  field  by 
Landor  or  Swinburne,  who  tell  over  the 
classical  stories  or  even  invent  new  episodes, 
but,  when  all  is  said,  do  not  write  as  if  they 
were  actually  themselves  Greeks. 

There  is  no  other  instance  in  Browning  of 
such  a  survival.  In  his  other  poems  on 
Greek  subjects  it  is  Browning  bringing  Greek 
life  to  our  ken  with  wonderful  distinctness, 
but  doing  it  according  to  his  own  accustomed 
poetical  methods,  or,  as  in  "Ixion,"  a  Greek 
story  has  been  used  as  a  symbol  for  the 
inculcating  of  a  philosophy  which  is  largely 
Browning's  own. 

In  spite  cf  the  fact  that  he  has  turned  to 
Greece  so  seldom  for  inspiration,  his  Greek 
poems  range  from  such  stirring  pictures  of 
Greek  life  and  feeling  as  one  gets  in  the  splen- 


CLASSIC  SURVIVALS  295 

did  dramatic  idyl  "  Pheidippides,"  based  on 
a  historical  incident,  through  the  imaginary 
"Cleon,"  in  which  is  found  the  sublimated 
essence  of  Greek  philosophical  thought  at  the 
time  of  Christ  —  thought,  weary  of  law  and 
beauty,  longing  for  a  fresh  inspiration,  knowing 
not  what,  and  unable  to  perceive  it  in  the 
new  ideal  of  love  being  taught  by  the  Chris- 
tians —  to  "Aristophanes'  Apology,"  in  which 
the  Athens  of  his  day,  with  its  literary  and 
political  factions,  is  presented  with  a  force 
and  analysis  which  place  it  second  only  to 
"The  Ring  and  the  Book." 

This  poem  taken,  with  Balaustion,  gives  the 
reader  not  only  a  comprehensive  view  of  the 
historical  atmosphere  of  the  time  but  indi- 
rectly shows  the  poet's  own  attitude  toward 
the  literary  war  between  Euripides  and 
Aristophanes.  So  different  are  Browning's 
Greek  poems  from  all  other  poems  upon 
classical  subjects  that  it  will  be  interesting 
to  dwell  upon  the  most  important  of  them 
at  greater  length  than  has  been  deemed  neces- 
sary in  the  case  of  the  more  widely  known 
and  read  of  the  poems. 

"Cleon"  links  itself  with  the  nineteenth 
century,  because  of  its  dealing  with  the 
problem  of  immortality,  a  problem  which  has 
been  ever  present  in  the  mind  of  the  century. 


296   BROWNING  AND  HIS  CENTURY 

Cleon  has,  beside  that  type  of  synthetic 
mind  which  belongs  to  a  ripe  phase  of  civili- 
zation. Though  he  is  a  Greek  and  a  pagan, 
he  stretches  hands  across  the  centuries  to 
men  of  the  type  of  Morris  or  Matthew  Arnold. 
He  is  the  latest  child  of  his  own  time,  the 
heir  of  all  the  ages  during  which  Greece  had 
developed  its  aesthetic  perfection,  discovered 
the  inadequacy  of  its  established  religion, 
come  through  its  philosophers  and  poets  to  a 
perception  of  the  immortality  of  the  soul, 
and  sunk  again  to  a  skepticism  which  had  no 
vision  of  personal  immortality  at  least,  though 
among  the  stoics  there  were  some  who  believed 
in  an  absorption  into  divine  being.  Cleon 
would  fain  believe  in  personal  immortality 
but  cannot,  and,  like  Matthew  Arnold,  believes 
in  facing  death  imperturbably. 

In  " Balaustion's  Adventure"  a  historical 
tradition  is  used  as  the  central  episode  of  the 
poem,  but  life  and  romance  are  given  to  it  by 
the  creation  of  the  heroine,  Balaustion,  a 
young  Greek  woman  whose  fascinating  per- 
sonality dominates  the  whole  poem.  She  was 
a  Rhodian,  else  her  freedom  of  action  and 
speech  might  seem  too  modern,  but  among 
the  islands  of  Greece,  at  least  at  the  time  of 
Euripides,  there  still  survived  that  attitude 
toward  woman  which  we  see  reflected  in  the 


CLASSIC  SURVIVALS  297 

Homeric  epics.  Away  from  Athens,  too, 
Euripides  was  a  power;  hence  his  defence  is 
put  into  the  mouth  of  one  not  an  Athenian. 
She  had  saved  a  shipload  of  Athenian  sympa- 
thizers by  reciting  Euripides  when  they  were 
in  danger  from  the  hostile  Syracusans. 

Besides  the  romantic  touch  which  is  given 
the  story  by  the  creation  of  the  lyric  girl,  there 
is  an  especial  fitness  in  making  the  enthusi- 
astic devotee  of  this  poet  a  woman,  for  no 
one  among  the  ancients  has  so  fully  and  sympa- 
thetically portrayed  woman  in  all  her  human 
possibilities  of  goodness  and  badness  as 
Euripides,  yet  he  has  been  called  a  woman- 
hater —  because  some  of  his  men  have  railed 
against  women  —  but  one  Alkestis  is  enough 
to  offset  any  dramatic  utterances  of  his  men 
about  women.  The  poet's  attitude  should 
be  looked  for  in  his  power  of  portraying 
women  of  fine  traits,  not  in  any  opinions 
expressed  by  his  men.  Furthermore,  Brown- 
ing had  before  him  a  model  of  Balaustion  in 
her  enthusiasm  for  Euripides,  in  Mrs.  Brown- 
ing. These  circumstances  are  certainly  suffi- 
cient to  prove  the  appropriateness  of  making 
a  Rhodian  girl  the  defender  of  Euripides. 

There  is  nothing  more  delicious  in  Browning 
than  Balaustion's  relation  of  "Alkestis,"  as 
she  had  seen  it  acted,  to  her  three  friends. 


298   BROWNING  AND  HIS  CENTURY 

Her  woman's  comment  and  criticisms  combine 
a  Browning's  penetration  of  the  fine  points 
in  the  play  with  a  girl's  idealism.  Such  a 
combination  of  masculine  intellectualism  and 
feminine  charm  has  been  known  in  women  of 
all  centuries.  As  the  translation  of  the  beau- 
tiful play  of  "Alkestis  "  proceeds,  Balaustion 
interprets  its  art  and  moral,  defending  her 
favorite  poet,  not  with  the  ponderousness  of 
a  grave  critic  weighing  the  influences  which 
may  have  molded  his  genius,  or  calculating 
the  pros  and  cons  of  his  style,  but  with  the 
swift  appreciation  of  a  mind  and  spirit  full 
of  the  ardor  of  sympathy.  Moreover,  her 
talk  of  the  play  being  a  recollection  of  how  it 
appeared  to  her  as  she  saw  it  acted,  the  mere 
text  is  constantly  enlarged  upon  and  made 
vital  with  flashing  glimpses  of  the  action,  as, 
for  example,  in  the  passage  just  after  the 
funeral  of  Alkestis: 

"So,  to  the  struggle  off  strode  Herakles, 
When  silence  closed  behind  the  lion-garb, 
Back  came  our  dull  fact  settling  in  its  place, 
Though  heartiness  and  passion  half-dispersed 
The  inevitable  fate.    And  presently 
In  came  the  mourners  from  the  funeral, 
One  after  one,  until  we  hoped  the  last 
Would  be  Alkestis,  and  so  end  our  dream. 
Could  they  have  really  left  Alkestis  lone 
I*  the  wayside  sepulchre!    Home,  all  save  she! 


CLASSIC  SURVIVALS  299 

And  when  Admetos  felt  that  it  was  so, 

By  the  stand-still:  when  he  lifted  head  and  face 

From  the  two  hiding  hands  and  peplos'  fold, 

And  looked  forth,  knew  the  palace,  knew  the  hills, 

Knew  the  plains,  knew  the  friendly  frequence  there, 

And  no  Alkestis  any  more  again, 

Why,  the  whole  woe  billow-like  broke  on  him. " 

Again,  her  criticism  of  Admetos  gives  at 
once  the  natural  feeling  of  a  girl  who  could 
not  be  satisfied  with  what  seemed  to  her  his 
selfish  action,  and  Browning's  feeling  that 
Euripides  saw  its  selfishness  just  as  surely  as 
Balaustion,  despite  the  fact  that  it  was  in 
keeping,  as  numerous  critics  declare,  with  the 
customs  of  the  age,  and  would  not  by  any 
of  his  contemporaries  be  regarded  as  selfish 
on  his  part: 

"So  he  stood  sobbing:  nowise  insincere, 
But  somehow  child-like,  like  his  children,  like 
Childishness  the  world  over.    What  was  new 
In  this  announcement  that  his  wife  must  die? 
What  particle  of  pain  beyond  the  pact 
He  made  with  his  eyes  wide  open,  long  ago — 
Made  and  was,  if  not  glad,  content  to  make? 
Now  that  the  sorrow,  he  had  called  for,  came, 
He  sorrowed  to  the  height:  none  heard  him  say, 
However,  what  would  seem  so  pertinent, 
'To  keep  this  pact,  I  find  surpass  my  power; 
Rescind  it,  Moirai!    Give  me  back  her  life, 
And  take  the  life  I  kept  by  base  exchange! 


300   BROWNING  AND  HIS  CENTURY 

Or,  failing  that,  here  stands  your  laughing-stock 
Fooled  by  you,  worthy  just  the  fate  o'  the  fool 
Who  makes  a  pother  to  escape  the  best  • 
And  gain  the  worst  you  wiser  Powers  allot!' 
No,  not  one  word  of  this;  nor  did  his  wife 
Despite  the  sobbing,  and  the  silence  soon 
To  follow,  judge  so  much  was  in  his  thought  — 
Fancy  that,  should  the  Moirai  acquiesce, 
He  would  relinquish  life  nor  let  her  die. 
The  man  was  like  some  merchant  who  in  storm, 
Throws  the  freight  over  to  redeem  the  ship; 
No  question,  saving  both  were  better  still, 
As  it  was,  —  why,  he  sorrowed,  which  sufficed. 
So,  all  she  seemed  to  notice  in  his  speech 
Was  what  concerned  her  children. " 

Among  modern  critics  who  take  the  con- 
ventional ground  in  regard  to  Admetos  may 
be  cited  Churton  Collins,  whose  opinion  is, 
of  course,  weighty.  He  writes: 

"Alcestis  would  be  considered  fortunate  for  having  had  an 
opportunity  of  displaying  so  conspicuously  the  fidelity  to  a 
wife's  first  and  capital  duty.  Had  Admetus  prevented  such  a 
sacrifice  he  would  have  robbed  Alcestis  of  an  honor  which 
every  nobly  ambitious  woman  in  Hellas  would  have  coveted. 
This  is  so  much  taken  for  granted  by  the  poet  that  all  that  he 
lays  stress  on  in  the  drama  is  the  virtue  rewarded  by  the 
return  of  Alcestis  to  life,  the  virtue  characteristic  of  Adme- 
tus, the  virtue  of  hospitality;  to  this  duty  in  all  the  agony  of  his 
sorrow  Admetus  had  been  nobly  true,  and  as  a  reward  for 
what  he  had  thus  earned,  the  wife  who  had  been  equally  true 
to  woman's  obligations  was  restored  all-glorified  to  home  and 
children  and  mutual  love. " 


CLASSIC  SURVIVALS  301 

Most  readers,  however,  will  find  it  difficult 
to  put  themselves  into  the  appropriate  Greek 
frame  of  mind,  and  will  sympathize  with 
Browning's  supposition  that  after  all  Euripi- 
des had  transcended  current  ideas  on  the 
subject  and  deliberately  intended  to  convey 
such  an  interpretation  of  the  character  of 
Admetos  as  Balaustion  gives. 

Balaustion  shows  her  penetration  again 
in  her  appreciation  of  Herakles.  He  distin- 
guishes clearly  between  evil  that  is  inherent 
in  the  nature  as  the  selfishness  of  Admetos, 
and  evil  which  is  more  or  less  external,  growing 
out  of  conditions  incident  to  the  tune  rather 
than  from  any  real  trait  of  nature.  Herakles' 
delight  in  the  hospitality  accorded  him,  his 
drinking  and  feasting  in  the  interim  of  his 
labors,  did  not  touch  the  genuine,  large- 
hearted  helpfulness  of  the  demigod,  who 
became  sober  the  moment  he  learned  there 
was  sorrow  in  the  house  and  need  of  his  aid. 

In  her  proposed  version  of  the  story,  Balaus- 
tion is  surely  the  romantic  girl,  who  would 
have  her  hero  a  hero  indeed  and  in  every 
way  the  equal  of  his  spouse.  Yet  if  we  delve 
below  this  romanticism  of  Balaustion  we  shall 
find  the  poet's  own  belief  in  the  almost 
omniscient  power  of  human  love  the  basis 
of  the  relation  between  Admetos  and  Alkestis. 


The  soul  of  Alkestis  in  one  look  entered 
into  that  of  Admetos;  she  died,  but  he  is 
entirely  guiltless  of  agreeing  to  her  death. 
Alkestis  herself  had  made  the  pact  with 
Apollo  to  die  for  her  husband.  He,  when  he 
learns  it,  refuses  to  accept  the  sacrifice,  and  un- 
able to  persuade  him  that  his  duty  to  human- 
ity demands  that  he  accept  it,  Alkestis  asks  him 
to  look  at  her.  Then  her  soul  enters  his,  but 
when  she  goes  to  Hades  and  demands  to  be- 
come a  ghost,  the  Queen  of  Hades  replies: 

"Hence,  thou  deceiver!    This  is  not  to  die, 
If,  by  the  very  death  which  mocks  me  now, 
The  life,  that's  left  behind  and  past  my  power, 
Is  formidably  doubled  —  Say,  there  fight 
Two  athletes,  side  by  side,  each  athlete  armed 
With  only  half  the  weapons,  and  no  more, 
Adequate  to  a  contest  with  their  foes. 
If  one  of  these  should  fling  helm,  sword  and  shield 
To  fellow — shieldless,  wordless,  helmless  late  — 
And  so  leap  naked  o'er  the  barrier,  leave 
A  combatant  equipped  from  head  to  heel, 
Yet  cry  to  the  other  side,  'Receive  a  friend 
Who  fights  no  longer!'     'Back,  friend,  to  the  fray!' 
Would  be  the  prompt  rebuff;  I  echo  it. 
Two  souls  in  one  were  formidable  odds: 
Admetos  must  not  be  himself  and  thou! 

"And  so,  before  the  embrace  relaxed  a  whit, 
The  lost  eyes  opened,  still  beneath  the  look; 
And  lo,  Alkestis  was  alive  again, 
And  of  Admetos'  rapture  who  shall  speak?  " 


CLASSIC  SURVIVALS  303 

How  unique  a  treatment  of  a  classical  sub- 
ject this  poem  is,  is  self-evident.  Not  content 
with  making  a  superb  translation  of  the  play, 
remarkable  both  for  its  literalness  and  for  its 
poetic  beauty,  the  poet  has  dared  to  present 
that  translation  indirectly  through  the  mouth 
of  another  speaker,  and  to  incorporate  with 
it  a  running  commentary  of  criticism  in  blank 
verse.  Still  more  daring  was  it  to  make  play 
and  criticism  an  episode  in  a  dramatic  mono- 
logue in  which  we  learn  not  only  the  story 
of  the  rescue  of  the  shipload  of  Athenian 
sympathizers,  but  the  story  of  Balaustion's 
love.  Along  with  all  this  complexity  of  interest 
there  is  still  room  for  a  lifelike  portrayal  of 
Balaustion  herself,  one  of  the  loveliest  concep- 
tions of  womanhood  in  literature. 

To  reiterate  what  I  have  upon  another 
occasion  expressed  in  regard  to  her,  she  is  a 
girl  about  whom  the  fancy  loves  to  cling  — 
she  is  so  joyous,  so  brave,  and  so  beautiful, 
and  possessed  of  so  rare  a  mind  scintillating 
with  wit,  wisdom  and  critical  insight,  not 
Browning's  own  mind  either  except  in  so 
far  as  his  sympathies  were  with  Euripides. 
Her  ardor  for  purity  and  perfection  is  perhaps 
peculiarly  feminine.  It  is  quite  different  from 
that  of  the  mind  tormented  by  the  problem  of 
evil  and  taking  refuge  in  a  partisanship  of 


304   BROWNING  AND  HIS  CENTURY 

evil  as  a  force  which  works  for  good  and  with- 
out which  the  world  would  be  a  waste  of 
insipidity.  Her  suggested  version  of  the 
Alkestis  story  converts  Admetos  into  as  much 
of  a  saint  as  Alkestis,  and  makes  an  exquisite 
and  soul-stirring  romance  of  their  perfect 
union,  though  it  must  be  admitted  that  it 
would  do  away  with  all  the  intensity  and 
dramatic  force  of  the  play  as  it  is  presented 
by  Euripides.  Like  the  angels  who  rejoice 
more  over  one  sinner  returned  than  over  the 
ninety  and  nine  that  did  not  go  astray,  an 
artist  prefers  the  contrast  and  movement  of 
a  sinning  and  regenerated  Admetos  to  an 
Admetos  more  suited  from  the  first  to  be  the 
consort  of  Alkestis.  This  is  the  touch, 
however,  which  preserves  Balaustion's  femin- 
ine charm  and  makes  her  truly  her  own  self  — 
an  ardent  soul  very  far  from  being  simply 
Browning's  mouthpiece. 

"Aristophanes'  Apology"  is  a  still  more 
remarkable  play  in  its  complexity.  Again, 
Balaustion  is  the  speaker,  and  Browning  has 
set  himself  the  task  in  this  monologue  of 
relating  the  fall  of  Athens,  of  presenting  the 
personality  of  Aristophanes,  of  defending 
Euripides,  a  translation  of  whose  play/'Hera- 
kles,"  is  included,  and  incidentally  sketching 
the  history  of  Greek  comedy,  all  through  the 


CLASSIC  SURVIVALS  305 

mouth  of  the  one  speaker,  Balaustion.  Not 
until  one  has  grasped  the  law  by  which  the 
poet  has  accomplished  this,  and  has  moreover 
freshly  in  his  mind  the  facts  of  Greek  history 
at  the  time  of  Athen's  fall,  and  Greek  litera- 
ture, especially  the  plays  of  Aristophanes  and 
Euripides,  can  the  poem  be  thoroughly  en- 
joyed. 

In  the  very  first  line  the  suggestion  of  the 
scene  setting  is  given,  and  such  suggestions 
occur  from  time  to  time  all  through  the  poem. 
It  should  be  observed  that  they  are  never 
brought  in  for  themselves  alone,  but  are 
always  used  in  connection  with  some  mood 
of  Balaustion's  or  as  imagery  in  relation  to 
some  thought.  While  the  reader  is  thus  kept 
conscious  of  the  background  of  wind  and  wave, 
as  Balaustion  and  her  husband  voyage  toward 
Rhodes,  it  is  not  until  the  end  of  the  poem 
that  we  learn  with  a  pleasant  surprise  that 
the  boat  on  which  they  are  sailing  is  the 
same  one  saved  once  by  Balaustion  when 
she  recited  Euripides'  "sweetest,  saddest 
song."  Thus  there  is  a  dramatic  denouement 
in  connection  with  the  scene  setting. 

Through  the  expression  of  a  mood  of 
despair  on  the  part  of  Balaustion  at  the 
opening  of  the  poem  the  reader  is  put  in 
possession  not  only  of  the  scene  setting  but 


306   BROWNING  AND  HIS  CENTURY 

of  the  occasion  of  the  voyage,  which  is  the 
overthrow  of  Athens.  From  the  mood  of 
despair  Balaustion  passes  to  one  in  which  she 
describes  how  she  could  better  have  borne 
to  see  Athens  perish.  This  carries  her  on 
to  a  more  hopeful  frame  of  mind,  in  which 
she  can  foresee  the  spiritual  influence  of 
Athens  persisting.  The  peace  of  mind  ensuing 
upon  this  consideration  makes  it  possible  for 
her  calmly  to  survey  the  events  connected 
with  its  downfall,  among  which  the  picturesque 
episode  of  the  dancing  of  the  flute  girls  to 
the  demolition  of  the  walls  of  the  Piraeus  is 
conspicuous.  She  then  sees  the  vision  of  the 
immortal  Athens  while  Sparta  the  victorious 
in  arms  will  die.  Then  comes  a  mood  in 
which  she  declares  it  will  be  better  to  face 
the  grief  than  to  brood  over  it,  which  leads 
to  her  proposing  to  Euthukles  that  they  treat 
the  fall  of  Athens  as  a  tragic  theme,  as  the 
poet  might  do,  and  enact  it  on  the  voyage. 
Then  grief  over  the  recent  events  takes 
possession  of  her  again,  and  now  with  the 
feminine  privilege  of  changing  her  mind,  she 
thinks  it  would  be  better  to  rehearse  an  event 
which  happened  to  herself  a  year  ago  as  a 
prologue.  Speaking  of  adventures  causes  her 
very  naturally  to  drop  into  reminiscences 
about  her  first  adventure,  when  she  recited 


ARISTOPHANES 


CLASSIC  SURVIVALS  307 

Euripides  and  met  the  man  who  was  to  be- 
come her  husband. 

Thus,  through  this  perfectly  natural  transi- 
tion from  one  mood  to  another,  Balaustion 
leads  up  to  the  real  subject-matter  of  the 
poem,  Aristophanes'  defence  of  himself, 
which,  however,  is  preceded  by  an  account 
of  the  effect  of  the  death  of  Euripides  upon 
the  Athenians  as  witnessed  by  Euthukles,  his 
death  being  the  occasion  of  Aristophanes' 
call  on  Balaustion.  What  she  calls  the  pro- 
logue is  really  the  main  theme  of  the  poem, 
while  all  her  talk  up  to  this  point  is  truly 
the  prologue.  The  actual  account  of  the  fall 
of  Athens  does  not  come  until  the  conclusion, 
and  is  related  in  comparatively  few  words. 

What  seems,  then,  to  be  the  chief  theme 
of  the  poem  with  its  setting  of  wind  and  wave 
and  bark  bears  somewhat  the  same  relation 
to  the  real  theme  as  incidental  music  does  to 
a  play.  Upon  first  thoughts  it  may  seem 
like  a  clumsy  contrivance  for  introducing 
Aristophanes  upon  the  scene,  but  in  the  end 
it  will  be  perceived,  I  think,  that  it  serves  the 
artistic  purpose  of  placing  Aristophanes  in 
proper  perspective.  Balaustion  with  her  ex- 
quisitely human  moods  and  progressive  spirit 
forms  the  right  complement  to  the  decaying 
ideals  of  Aristophanes,  and  gives  him  the 


308   BROWNING  AND  HIS  CENTURY 

proper  flavor  of  antiquity.  Instead  of  seeing 
him  in  the  broad  light  of  a  direct  dramatic  pres- 
entation we  see  him  indirectly  through  Balaus- 
tion's  thoughts  and  moods,  who,  though  per- 
mitting hun  to  do  full  justice  to  himself,  yet 
surrounds  him  all  the  time  with  the  subtle 
influence  of  her  sympathy  for  Euripides. 

As  the  better  way  to  follow  the  development 
of  the  preliminary  part  of  the  poem  is  by 
regarding  every  step  as  the  outcome  of  a 
mood  on  the  part  of  Balaustion,  so  the  better 
way  of  following  Aristophanes  through  what 
seems  his  interminable  defence  of  himself  is 
again  by  tracing  the  moods  through  which 
his  arguments  express  themselves. 

Aristophanes  comes  in  half  drunk  to  make 
his  call  on  Balaustion,  and  his  first  mood  is 
one  of  graciousness  toward  her  whose  beauty 
has  impressed  his  artistic  perceptions,  but 
noticing  her  dignity  and  its  effect  in  routing 
the  chorus,  he  immediately  begins  to  be  on 
the  defensive.  The  disappearance  of  his 
chorus,  however,  takes  him  off  on  a  little 
excursion  about  the  moves  which  are  being 
made  by  the  city  to  cut  down  the  expense 
of  dramatic  performances  by  curtailing  the 
chorus.  In  a  spirit  of  bravado  he  declares 
that  he  does  not  care  so  long  as  he  has  his 
actors  left.  A  coarse  reference  causes  Balaus- 


CLASSIC  SURVIVALS  309 

tion  to  turn  and  he  changes  his  mood.  He 
acknowledges  he  is  drunk  and  rushes  off  into 
a  defence  of  drunkenness  in  general  for  play- 
wrights and  for  himself,  which  on  this  occasion 
came  about  on  account  of  the  supper  he  and 
his  players  have  attended.  He  rattles  on 
about  the  supper,  telling  how  the  merriment 
increased  until  something  happened.  The 
thought  of  this  something  changes  his  mood 
completely.  Balaustion  notices  it,  he  reads 
her  expression,  and  characteristically  explains 
the  change  in  himself  as  due  to  her  fixed 
regard.  The  reader  is  left  in  suspense  as  to 
the  something  which  happened,  yet  it  haunts 
the  memory,  and  he  feels  convinced  that 
some  time  he  is  to  know  what  it  was. 

Now  Aristophanes  bids  Balaustion  speak 
to  him  without  fear.  She  does  so,  conveying 
in  her  welcome  both  her  disapproval  and  her 
admiration.  Aristophanes,  evidently  piqued, 
does  not  answer,  but  makes  personal  remarks 
upon  the  manner  of  her  speech,  asking  her  if 
she  learned  tragedy  from  him  —  Euripides. 
This  starts  him  off  on  dreams  of  a  new  comedy 
in  which  women  shall  act,  but  he  concludes 
that  his  mission  is  to  ornament  comedy  as 
he  finds  it,  not  invent  a  new  comedy. 

This  gives  Balaustion  a  chance  to  ask  if 
in  his  last  play,  later  than  the  one  Euthukles 


310   BROWNING  AND  HIS  CENTURY 

had  seen,  he  had  smoothed  this  ancient  club 
of  comedy  he  speaks  of  into  a  more  human 
and  less  brutal  implement  of  warfare,  and 
was  it  a  conviction  of  this  new  method  he 
might  use  in  comedy  which  was  the  something 
that  happened  at  the  feast.  Aristophanes, 
as  usual  when  he  is  cornered,  makes  no 
direct  reply,  but  asks  if  Euthukles  saw  his 
last  play,  to  which  Balaustion  frankly  replies 
that  having  seen  the  first  he  never  cared  to 
see  the  following.  Aristophanes  avows  he 
can  show  cause  why  he  wrote  them,  but 
glances  off  in  a  sarcastic  reference  to  Euripides, 
whose  art  he  says  belongs  to  the  closet  or  the 
cave,  not  to  the  world.  He  prefers  to  stick 
to  the  old  forms  of  art  and  make  Athens 
happy  in  what  coarse  way  she  desires.  He 
then  proceeds  to  enlarge  upon  what  that  is. 
Then  he  changes  again  and  asks  with  various 
excursions  into  side  issues  (for  example:  the 
rise  of  comedy;  how  it  is  now  being  regarded 
by  the  government,  which  favors  tragedy, 
giving  him  another  chance  for  a  dig  at  Euri- 
pides) if  he  is  the  man  likely  to  be  satisfied 
to  be  classed  merely  a  comic  poet  since  he 
wrote  the  "Birds?"  Balaustion  encourages 
him  a  little  here,  and,  cheered  up,  he  goes  on 
to  tell  how  he  gave  the  people  draught  divine 
in  "Wasps"  and  "Grasshoppers,"  and  how 


CLASSIC  SURVIVALS  311 

he  praised  peace  by  showing  the  kind  of 
pleasures  one  may  have  when  peace  reigns  — 
and  still  at  every  opportunity  casting  slurs 
at  the  tragic  muse,  especially  Euripides. 

He  goes  on  describing  his  play  until  he 
touches  on  some  of  the  sarcasms  which  make 
Balaustion  wince. 

Then  he  turns  about  and  declares  he 
loathes  as  much  as  she  does  the  things  of 
which  he  tells,  but  his  attempts  at  bringing 
comedy  up  to  a  high  level  having  failed,  he 
is  obliged  to  give  the  Athenians  what  they 
want,  a  smartened  up  version  of  the  "Thesma- 
phoriazousai, "  which  had  failed  the  year 
before.  He  describes  his  triumph  with  this 
which  was  being  celebrated  at  the  supper 
when  the  something  happened  which  is  now 
at  last  described  —  namely,  the  entrance  of 
Sophocles,  who  announces  that  he  intends  to 
commemorate  the  death  of  Euripides  by  hav- 
ing his  chorus  clothed  in  black  and  ungar- 
landed  at  the  performance  of  his  play  next 
month. 

This  startling  scene,  being  prepared  for 
and  not  brought  in  until  Aristophanes  has 
done  much  talking,  seems  to  throw  a  sudden 
flash  of  reality  into  the  poem.  Ill-natured 
criticism,  Aristophanes  shows,  follows  on  the 
part  of  the  feasters,  though  Aristophanes' 


312   BROWNING  AND  HIS  CENTURY 

mood  is  one  of  sudden  recognition  of  the 
value  of  Euripides.  But  when  he,,  sobered 
for  the  time  being,  proposes  a  toast  to  the 
Tragic  Muse,  the  feasters  consider  it  a  joke. 
He  quickly  accepts  the  situation,  and  comes 
off  triumphant  by  proposing  a  toast  to  both 
muses. 

After  this  Balaustion  asks  Aristophanes  if 
he  will  commemorate  Euripides  with  them. 
But  his  sober  mood  is  gone.  He  looks  about 
the  room,  sees  things  that  belong  to  Euripides, 
and  immediately  begins  stabbing  at  him. 
Balaustion  objects,  and  upon  the  theme  of 
respect  to  the  dead  he  begins  his  usual  invec- 
tive against  his  rivals,  but  finally  ends  by 
giving  respect  to  Euripides,  him  whose  serenity, 
he  declares,  could  never  with  his  gibes  be 
disturbed. 

After  venting  this  mood  of  animosity  he 
begins  soberly  to  discuss  the  origin  of  comedy. 
He  traces  its  growth  to  the  point  where  he 
found  it,  and  enlarges  on  the  improvements 
he  has  made,  touching,  as  always,  upon  the 
criticisms  of  his  opposers,  and  finally  arriving 
at  the  chief  point  of  difference  between  him- 
self and  Euripides,  which  he  enlarges  upon 
at  great  length.  Here  the  incidental  music 
breaks  in  with  talk  between  Balaustion  and 
Euthukles,  in  which  the  former  rather  tries 


CLASSIC  SURVIVALS  313 

to  excuse  herself  from  relating  her  reply  to 
Aristophanes. 

However,  she  does  give  her  reply,  which 
is  conducted  in  a  more  truly  argumentative 
fashion  than  the  defence  of  Aristophanes. 
She  picks  up  his  points  and  makes  her  points 
against  him  usually  by  denying  the  truth 
of  what  he  has  said.  Her  supreme  defence 
is,  however,  the  reading  of  the  play  "Hera- 
kles." 

Aristophanes,  touched  but  not  convinced, 
finally  insists  that  he  is  Athens'  best  friend. 
He  is  no  Thamuris  to  be  punished  for  seeing 
beyond  human  vision.  The  last  character- 
istic touch  is  when  Aristophanes  catches  up 
the  psalterion  and  sings  the  lyric  of  Thamuris. 
Then  he  departs,  and  Balaustion  rehearses 
the  last  days  of  Athens,  with  Euthukles'  part 
in  delaying  the  tragedy  of  the  doomed  city. 

By  threading  one's  way  thus  through  the 
apology,  not  from  the  point  of  view  of  Aris- 
tophanes' arguments,  but  from  the  point  of 
view  of  his  moods,  one  experiences  a  tremen- 
dous sense  of  the  personality  of  the  man. 
Repetitions  which  are  not  required  for  the 
full  presentation  of  his  case  take  their  place 
as  natural  to  a  man  who  is  not  only  inordi- 
nately vain  but  is  immediately  swayed  by 
every  suggestion  and  emotion  that  comes  to 


314  BROWNING  AND  HIS  CENTURY 

him.  Owing  to  his  volatile  temperament  the 
argument  is  varied  by  now  a  bit  of  vivid 
description  like  that  of  the  archon's  feast 
when  Sophocles  appeared,  now  by  some 
merely  personal  remark  to  Balaustion. 

The  criticism  in  this  play,  as  in  that  of 
"Balaustion's  Adventure,"  may  be  considered 
either  as  representing  some  phase  of  contem- 
porary opinion  about  Aristophanes  or  as 
expressing  the  opinion  of  the  poet  himself. 
Balaustion's  indignation  is  especially  aroused 
by  the  two  plays,  "The  Lusistrata"  and  the 
"Thesmophoriazousai,"  both  of  which  she 
finds  utterly  detestable.  It  is  interesting  to 
compare  with  this  entirely  unfavorable  criti- 
cism the  feeling  of  such  distinguished  classical 
scholars  as  Gilbert  Murray  and  J.  A.  Symonds. 
The  first  Murray  describes  as  a  play  "full  of 
daring  indecency,  it  is  true,  but  the  curious 
thing  is  that  Aristophanes,  while  professing 
to  ridicule  the  women,  is  all  through  on  their 
side.  The  jokes  made  by  the  superior  sex 
at  the  expense  of  the  inferior  —  to  give  them 
their  Roman  names  —  are  seldom  remarkable 
either  for  generosity  or  refinement,  and  it  is 
our  author's  pleasant  humor  to  accuse  every- 
body of  every  vice  he  can  think  of  at  the 
moment.  Yet  with  the  single  exception  that 
he  credits  women  with  an  inordinate  fondness 


CLASSIC  SURVIVALS  315 

for  wine  parties  —  the  equivalent  it  would 
seem  of  afternoon  tea  —  he  makes  them  on 
the  whole  perceptibly  more  sensible  and  more 
sympathetic  than  his  men." 

Of  the  second  play  Symonds  speaks  with 
actual  enthusiasm.  "It  has  a  regular  plot  — 
an  intrigue  and  a  solution  —  and  its  persons 
are  not  allegorical  but  real.  Thus  it  ap- 
proaches the  standard  of  modern  comedy.  But 
the  plot,  though  gigantic  in  its  scale,  and  pro- 
digious in  its  wealth  of  wit  and  satire,  is 
farcical.  The  artifices  by  which  Euripides 
endeavors  to  win  Agathon  to  undertake  his 
cause,  the  disguise  of  Muesilochus  in  female 
attire,  the  oratory  of  the  old  man  against  the 
women  in  the  midst  of  their  assembly,  his 
detection,  the  momentary  suspension  of  the 
dramatic  action  by  his  seizure  of  the  supposed 
baby,  his  slaughter  of  the  swaddled  wine  jar, 
his  apprehension  by  Cleisthenes,  the  devices 
and  disguises  by  which  Euripides  endeavors 
to  extricate  his  father-in-law  from  the  scrape, 
and  the  final  ruse  by  which  he  eludes  the 
Scythian  bowmen,  and  carries  off  Muesilochus 
in  triumph  —  all  these  form  a  series  of  highly 
diverting  comic  scenes."  Again,  "There  is 
no  passage  in  Aristophanes  more  amusing 
than  the  harangue  of  Muesilochus.  The 
portrait,  too,  of  Agathon  in  the  act  of  compo- 


316   BROWNING  AND  HIS  CENTURY 

sition  is  exquisitely  comic.  But  the  crowning 
sport  of  the  'Thesmophoriazousai*  is  in  the 
last  scene  when  Muesilochus  adapts  the 
Palamedes  and  the  Helen  of  Euripides  to  his 
own  forlorn  condition,  jumbling  up  the  well- 
known  verses  of  these  tragedies  with  coarse- 
flavored,  rustical  remarks;  and  when  at  last 
Euripides,  himself,  acts  Echo  and  Perseus  to 
the  Andromeda  of  his  father-in-law,  and  both 
together  mystify  the  policeman  by  their 
ludicrous  utterance  of  antiphonal  lamenta- 
tion." 

In  her  welcome  of  him,  Balaustion  expresses 
rather  what  she  thinks  he  might  be  than  what 
she  really  thinks  he  is.  She  welcomes  him : 

"Good  Genius!    Glory  of  the  poet,  glow 
O'  the  humorist  who  castigates  his  kind, 
Suave  summer-lightning  lambency  which  plays 
On  stag-horned  tree,  misshapen  crag  askew, 
Then  vanishes  with  unvindictive  smile 
After  a  moment's  laying  black  earth  bare. 
Splendor  of  wit  that  springs  a  thunder  ball  — 
Satire  —  to  burn  and  purify  the  world, 
True  aim,  fair  purpose:  just  wit  justly  strikes 
Injustice,  —  right,  as  rightly  quells  the  wrong, 
Finds  out  in  knaves',  fools',  cowards',  armory 
The  tricky  tinselled  place  fire  flashes  through. 
No  damage  else,  sagacious  of  true  ore; 
Wit  learned  in  the  laurel,  leaves  each  wreath 
O'er  lyric  shell  or  tragic  barbiton,  — 
Though  alien  gauds  be  singed,  —  undesecrate. " 


CLASSIC  SURVIVALS  317 

Her  attitude  here  is  very  like  that  of 
criticism  in  general,  except  that  she  is  more  or 
less  sarcastic,  meaning  to  imply  that  such 
Aristophanes  might  be  but  is  not.  Symonds, 
on  the  other  hand,  thinks  him  really  what 
Balaustion  thinks  he  might  be. 

"If,"  he  says,  "Coleridge  was  justified  in 
claiming  the  German  word  Lustspiel  for  the 
so-called  comedies  of  Shakespeare,  we  have  a 
far  greater  right  to  appropriate  this  wide  and 
pregnant  title  to  the  plays  of  Aristophanes. 
The  brazen  mask  which  crowns  his  theatre 
smiles  indeed  broadly,  serenely,  as  if  its  mirth 
embraced  the  universe;  but  its  hollow  eye- 
sockets  suggest  infinite  possibilities  of  pro- 
foundest  irony.  Buffoonery  carried  to  the 
point  of  paradox,  wisdom  disguised  as  in- 
sanity, and  gaiety  concealing  the  whole  sum 
of  human  disappointment,  sorrow  and  disgust, 
seem  ready  to  escape  from  its  open  but  rigid 
lips,  which  are  molded  to  a  proud  perpetual 
laughter.  It  is  a  laughter  which  spares  neither 
God  nor  man  —  which  climbs  Olympus  only  to 
drag  down  the  immortals  to  its  scorn,  and  trails 
the  pall  of  august  humanity  in  the  mire;  but 
which,  amid  its  mockery  and  blasphemy,  seems 
everlastingly  asserting,  as  by  paradox,  that 
reverence  of  the  soul  which  bends  our  knees 
to  heaven  and  makes  us  respect  our  brothers." 


318   BROWNING  AND  HIS  CENTURY 

One  cannot  help  feeling,  in  view  of  these 
very  diverse  opinions,  that  both  are  exagger- 
ated. The  enthusiasm  of  Symonds  seems 
almost  fanatic.  Though  no  one  of  penetra- 
tion can  fail  to  see  the  wit  and  wisdom,  and 
at  times,  in  such  lyrics  as  those  in  "The 
Clouds,"  the  poetic  charm  of  Aristophanes, 
the  person  of  fastidious  taste,  whether  a  Greek 
girl  of  his  own  day,  or  a  man  of  these  latter 
days,  must  sometimes  feel  that  his  buffoonery 
oversteps  the  bounds  of  true  wit,  even  when 
it  is  not  shadowed  by  a  coarseness  not  to  be 
borne  at  the  present  day.  When  Balaustion 
asks  him  "in  plain  words," 

"Have  you  exchanged  brute  blows,  which  teach  the  brute 
Man  may  surpass  him  in  brutality,  — 
For  human  fighting,  or  true  god-like  force 
Which  breeds  persuasion  nor  needs  fight  at  all?" 

Aristophanes  replies  that  it  had  not  been  his 
intention  to  turn  art's  fabric  upside  down  and 
invent  an  entirely  new  species  of  comedy. 
That  sort  of  thing  can  be  done  by  one  who  has 
turned  his  back  on  life,  friendly  faces,  sym- 
pathetic cheer,  as  Euripides  had  done  in  his 
Salaminian  cave. 

This  may  be  regarded,  on  the  whole,  as  a 
good  bit  of  defence  on  Aristophanes'  part. 
It  is  equivalent  to  his  saying  that  there  was 


CLASSIC  SURVIVALS  319 

no  use  in  his  trying  to  be  anything  for  which 
his  genius  had  not  fitted  him.  This  chimes  in, 
again,  with  such  authoritative  criticism  as 
Murray's,  who  declares:  "The  general  value 
of  his  view  of  life,  and,  above  all,  his  treat- 
ment of  his  opponent's  alleged  vices,  may  well 
be  questioned.  Yet  admitting  that  he  often 
opposed  what  was  best  in  his  age,  or  advo- 
cated it  on  the  lowest  grounds,  admitting  that 
his  slanders  are  beyond  description  and  that,  as 
a  rule,  he  only  attacks  the  poor  and  the 
leaders  of  the  poor,  nevertheless  he  does  it  all 
with  such  exhuberant  high  spirits,  such  an 
air  of  its  all  being  nonsense  together,  such 
insight  and  swiftness,  such  incomparable  direct- 
ness and  charm  of  style,  that  even  if  some 
Archelaus  had  handed  him  over  to  Euripides 
to  scourge,  he  would  probably  have  escaped 
his  well-earned  whipping." 

Much  of  Aristophanes'  defence  consists  in 
slurring  at  Euripides,  against  whom  he  waxes 
more  and  more  fierce  as  he  goes  on.  His  plays 
furnish  numerous  illustrations  of  his  rivalry 
with  Euripides,  yet  curiously  enough,  as  crit- 
ics have  pointed  out,  Aristophanes  imitates 
Euripides  to  a  noteworthy  extent,  so  much  so 
that  the  dramatist  Cratinus  invented  a  word 
to  describe  the  style  of  the  two  —  Euripid- 
Aristophanize.  Judging  from  his  parodies  on 


320   BROWNING  AND  HIS  CENTURY 

Euripides,  he  must  certainly  have  read  and 
reread  his  plays  until  he  knew  them  practi- 
cally by  heart. 

Balaustion,  as  Browning  has  portrayed  her 
in  this  poem,  is  the  lyric  girl  developed  into 
splendid  womanhood.  She  has  a  large  heart 
and  a  large  brain,  as  well  as  imagination  and 
strong  ethical  fervor.  Her  intense  feeling 
at  the  fall  of  Athens,  which  had  been  the 
ideal  to  her  of  greatness,  and  her  reverential 
love  for  Euripides,  her  charity  toward  Aris- 
tophanes the  man,  if  not  toward  his  work, 
show  how  deep  and  far-reaching  her  sym- 
pathies were.  Again,  her  imagination  flashes 
forth  in  her  picturesque  descriptions  of  the 
ruined  Athens  and  her  prophetic  picture  of 
the  new  Athens,  of  the  spirit  which  will  arise 
in  its  place,  in  her  telling  portraiture  of 
Aristophanes  and  his  entrance  into  her  house, 
as  well  as  in  many  another  passage.  Her  in- 
tellect shines  out  in  her  clever  management 
of  the  argument  with  Aristophanes,  and  her 
ethical  fervor  in  her  denunciations  of  the 
moral  depravity  of  certain  of  the  plays. 

As  to  the  question  of  whether  a  young 
Greek  woman  would  be  likely  to  criticise 
Aristophanes  in  this  way,  opinion  certainly 
differs.  History  is,  for  the  most  part,  silent 
about  women.  As  Mahaffy  says,  it  is  only 


CLASSIC  SURVIVALS  321 

in  the  dramatists  and  the  philosophers  that 
we  can  get  any  glimpses  of  the  woman  of  the 
time. 

Mahaffy's  opinions  are  worth  quoting  as  an 
example  of  the  pessimism  growing  out  of  a 
bias  in  favor  of  a  particular  type  of  woman 
which  he  idealized  in  his  own  mind.  He  seems 
utterly  incapable  of  appreciating  the  human- 
ness  of  the  women  in  the  Greek  drama- 
tists, especially  those  in  Euripides.  "Sadder 
than  the  condition  of  the  aged  was  that  of 
women,"  he  writes,  "at  this  remarkable 
period.  The  days  of  the  noble  and  high- 
principled  Penelope,  of  the  refined  and  in- 
tellectual Helen,  of  the  innocent  and  spirited 
Nausikaa,  of  the  gentle  and  patient  An- 
dromache, had  passed  away.  Men  no  longer 
sought  and  respected  the  society  of  the 
gentler  sex.  Would  that  Euripides  had  even 
been  familiar,  as  Homer  was,  with  the  sound 
of  women  brawling  in  .the  streets!  For  in 
these  days  they  were  confined  to  Asiatic 
silence  and  seclusion,  while  the  whole  life  of 
the  men,  both  in  business  and  recreation,  was 
essentially  public.  Just  as  the  feverish  ex- 
citement of  political  life  nowadays  prompts 
men  to  spend  even  their  leisure  in  the  clubs, 
where  they  meet  companions  of  like  passions 
and  interests  with  themselves,  so  the  Athenian 


322   BROWNING  AND  HIS  CENTURY 

gentleman  only  came  home  to  eat  and  sleep. 
His  leisure  as  well  as  his  business  kept  him  in 
the  market  place.  His  wife  and  daughters, 
ignorant  of  philosophy  and  politics,  were 
strangers  to  his  real  life,  and  took  no  interest 
in  his  pursuits. 

"The  results  were  fatal  to  Athenian  society. 
The  women,  uninstructed,  neglected,  and  en- 
slaved, soon  punished  their  oppressors  with 
their  own  keen  and  bitter  weapons,  and  with 
none  keener  than  their  vices.  For,  of  course, 
all  the  grace  and  delicacy  of  female  character 
disappeared.  Intellectual  power  in  women 
was  distinctly  associated  with  moral  de- 
pravity, so  that  excessive  ignorance  and 
stupidity  was  considered  the  only  guarantee 
of  virtue.  The  qualifications  for  society 
became  incompatible  with  the  qualifications 
for  home  duties,  so  that  the  outcasts  from 
society,  as  we  call  them,  were  not  the  im- 
moral and  the  profligate  but  the  honorable  and 
the  virtuous." 

Such  is  the  view  to  be  gleaned  from  history, 
and  in  Mahaffy's  opinion  the  literature  of  the 
time  tells  the  same  story.  He  goes  on: 
"When  we  consult  the  literature  of  the  day, 
we  find  women  treated  either  with  contemp- 
tuous ridicule  in  comedy,  or  with  still  more 
contemptuous  silence  in  history.  In  tragedy 


CLASSIC  SURVIVALS  323 

or  in  the  social  theories  of  the  philosophers 
alone  can  we  hope  for  a  glimpse  into  the  aver- 
age character  and  position  of  Athenian  women. 
Here  at  least  we  might  have  expected  that 
the  portraits  drawn  with  such  consummate 
skill  by  Homer  would  have  been  easily  trans- 
ferred to  the  Athenian  stage.  But  to  our 
astonishment  we  find  the  higher  social  feelings 
toward  women  so  weak  that  the  Athenian 
tragic  poets  seem  quite  unable  to  appreciate, 
or  even  to  understand,  the  more  delicate 
features  in  Homeric  characters.  They  are 
painted  so  coarsely  and  ignorantly  by  Eu- 
ripides that  we  should  never  recognize  them 
but  for  their  names.  Base  motives  and  un- 
seemly wrangling  take  the  place  of  chivalrous 
honor  and  graceful  politeness. 

"But  the  critics  of  the  day  complained  that 
Euripides  degraded  the  ideal  character  of 
tragedy  by  painting  human  nature  as  he 
found  it :  in  fact  as  it  was,  and  not  as  it  ought 
to  be.  Let  us  turn,  then,  to  Sophokles,  who 
painted  the  most  ideal  women  which  the 
imagination  of  a  refined  Athenian  could  con- 
ceive, and  consider  his  most  celebrated  char- 
acters, his  Antigone  and  his  Elektra.  A 
calm,  dispassionate  survey  will,  I  think,  pro- 
nounce them  harsh  and  masculine.  They  act 
rightly,  no  doubt,  and  even  nobly,  but  they 


324   BROWNING  AND  HIS  CENTURY 

do  it  in  the  most  disagreeable  way.  Except 
in  their  external  circumstances  they  differ 
in  no  respect  from  men." 

Certainly,  the  opinion  expressed  of  the 
women  of  Euripides  is  tainted  by  the  feeling 
that  they  ought  to  act  like  English  matrons 
and  their  daughters. 

Quite  a  different  impression  is  given  by 
Symonds,  who,  in  regard  to  some  of  the 
sentences  occurring  in  Euripides  which  are 
uncomplimentary  to  women,  says:  "It  is  im- 
possible to  weigh  occasional  sententious  sar- 
casms against  such  careful  studies  of  heroic 
virtue  in  women  as  the  Iphigenia,  the  Elektra, 
the  Polyxena,  the  Alkestis." 

But  the  complete  vindication  of  the  fact 
that  Balaustion  and  Mrs.  Browning  and  our 
own  women  of  to-day  are  on  the  right  side  in 
their  appreciation  of  Euripides  as  the  great 
woman's  poet  of  antiquity  is  found  in  the 
opinion  of  our  contemporary  critic,  Gilbert 
Murray,  who  more  than  thirty  years  after 
these  poems  were  written  writes  of  the 
"wonderful  women-studies  by  which  Euri- 
pides dazzled  and  aggrieved  his  contempora- 
ries. They  called  him  a  hater  of  women;  and 
Aristophanes  makes  the  women  of  Athens 
conspire  for  revenge  against  him.  Of  course 
he  was  really  the  reverse.  He  loved  and 


CLASSIC  SURVIVALS  325 

studied  and  expressed  the  women  whom 
the  Socratics  ignored  and  Pericles  advised 
to  stay  in  their  rooms.  Crime,  however,  is 
always  more  striking  and  palpable  than  virtue. 
Heroines  like  Medea,  Phaedra,  Stheneboia, 
Aerope,  Clytemnestra,  perhaps  fill  the  imagi- 
nation more  than  those  of  the  angelic  or  de- 
voted type  —  Alcestis,  who  died  to  save  her 
husband,  Evadne  and  Laodamia,  who  could 
not  survive  theirs,  and  all  the  great  list  of 
virgin-martyrs.  But  the  significant  fact  is 
that,  like  Ibsen,  Euripides  refuses  to  idealize 
any  man,  and  does  idealize  women.  There 
is  one  youth-martyr,  Menoikeus  in  the 
*  Phsenissae,'  but  his  martyrdom  is  a  mas- 
culine, businesslike  performance  —  he  gets 
rid  of  his  prosaic  father  by  a  pretext  about 
traveling  money  without  that  shimmer  of 
loveliness  that  hangs  over  the  virgins." 

Where  then  did  Euripides  find  these  splendid 
women  of  force  and  character?  It  seems 
quite  impossible  that  he  could  have  evolved 
them  out  of  his  own  inner  consciousness.  He 
must  have  known  women  who  served  at 
least,  in  part,  as  models.  Besides,  there  was 
undoubtedly  a  new  woman  movement  in  the 
air  or  Plato  in  his  "Republic"  would  not  have 
suggested  a  plan  for  educating  men  and 
women  alike.  The  free  women  of  Athens 


326   BROWNING  AND  HIS  CENTURY 

are  known  in  some  cases  to  have  attained 
a  high  degree  of  culture.  Aspasia,  who  be- 
became  the  wife  of  Pericles,  is  a  shining  ex- 
ample. There  was  Sappho,  also,  with  her 
school  of  poetry  attended  by  girls  in  Lesbos. 

Taking  all  these  facts  into  consideration, 
it  would  seem  that  Browning  was  sufficiently 
justified  in  drawing  such  a  woman  as  Balaus- 
tion,  and  that  a  woman  of  her  penetrating 
intellect  and  ardor  of  spirit  would  love  Eu- 
ripides, and  dislike  Aristophanes,  seems  ab- 
solutely certain. 

Therefore,  if  the  historical  attitude  is  taken 
toward  Balaustion  and  her  criticism  and 
appreciation,  it  can  be  on  the  whole  accepted 
as  reflecting  what  would  probably  be  the 
feeling  of  an  ardent  woman-follower  of  Eu- 
ripides in  his  own  day. 

But,  on  the  other  hand,  if  the  criticism  be 
taken  as  Browning's  own,  it  is  open  to  ques- 
tion whether  it  is  partisan  rather  than  en- 
tirely broad-minded.  Take  the  consensus  of 
opinion  of  modern  critics  and  we  find  them 
all  agreed  in  regard  to  the  genius  of  Aris- 
tophanes, though  admitting  that  his  coarse- 
ness must,  at  times,  detract  from  their  enjoy- 
ment of  him. 

There  is  much  truth  in  Symonds'  criticism 
of  the  poem.  He  says  of  it:  "As  a  sophist  and 


CLASSIC  SURVIVALS  327 

a  rhetorician  of  poetry,  Mr.  Browning  proves 
himself  unrivaled,  and  takes  rank  with  the 
best  writers  of  historical  romances.  Yet 
students  may  fairly  accuse  him  of  some  special 
pleading  in  favor  of  his  friends  and  against  his 
foes.  It  is  true  that  Aristophanes  did  not 
bring  back  again  the  golden  days  of  Greece; 
true  that  his  comedy  revealed  a  corruption 
latent  in  Athenian  life.  But  neither  was 
Euripides  in  any  sense  a  savior.  Impartiality 
regards  them  both  as  equally  destructive: 
Aristophanes,  because  he  indulged  animalism 
and  praised  ignorance  in  an  age  which  ought 
to  have  outgrown  both;  Euripides,  because 
he  criticised  the  whole  fabric  of  Greek  thought 
and  feeling  in  an  age  which  had  not  yet  dis- 
tinguished between  analysis  and  skepticism. 

"  What  has  just  been  said  about  Mr.  Brown- 
ing's special  pleading  indicates  the  chief  fault 
to  be  found  with  his  poem.  The  point  of 
view  is  modern.  The  situation  is  strained. 
Aristophanes  becomes  the  scapegoat  of  Athe- 
nian sins,  while  Euripides  shines  forth  a 
saint  as  well  as  a  sage.  Balaustion,  for  her 
part,  beautiful  as  her  conception  truly  is, 
takes  up  a  position  which  even  Plato  could 
not  have  assumed.  Into  her  mouth  Mr. 
Browning  has  put  the  views  of  the  most 
searching  and  most  sympathetic  modern 


328   BROWNING  AND  HIS  CENTURY 

analyst.  She  judges  Euripides  not  as  he 
appeared  to  his  own  Greeks,  but  as  he  strikes 
the  warmest  of  his  admirers,  who  compare  his 
work  with  that  of  all  the  poets  who  have  ever 
lived." 

It  would  seem  that  Mr.  Symonds,  himself, 
does  some  special  pleading  here.  As  we  have 
seen,  Euripides,  though  not  a  favorite  in 
Athens,  did  have  warm  admirers  in  his  own 
day;  consequently  there  is  nothing  out  of  the 
way  in  portraying  one  of  his  contemporaries 
as  an  admirer.  Furthermore,  Balaustion  does 
not  represent  him  as  a  savior  of  his  age.  She 
sees  only  too  clearly  that  in  the  narrow  sense 
of  convincing  his  age  he  has  not  been  a  suc- 
cess. What  is  her  vision  of  the  spiritual 
Athens  which  is  to  arise  but  a  confession  of 
this  fact!  Nor  is  it  entirely  improbable  that 
she  might  be  prophetic  of  a  time  when  Eu- 
ripides will  be  recognized  as  the  true  power. 
Any  disciple  of  a  poet  ahead  of  his  time  per- 
ceives these  things.  One  should  be  careful 
in  judging  of  the  poem  as  good  modern 
criticism  not  to  be  entirely  guided  by  the 
opinions  of  Balaustion.  It  should  never  be 
forgotten  that  it  is  a  dramatic  poem  in  which 
Aristophanes  is  allowed  to  speak  for  himself 
at  great  length,  and  whatever  can  be  ac- 
cepted as  good  argument  for  himself  upon 


CLASSIC  SURVIVALS  329 

his  own  ground  should  be  set  over  against 
the  sweeping  strictures  of  Balaustion.  In- 
deed it  may  turn  out  that  Browning  has, 
after  all,  said  for  him  the  most  exculpatory 
word  of  any  critic,  for  he  has  so  presented  his 
case  as  to  show  that  he  considers  him  the 
outcome  of  the  undeveloped  phase  of  morals 
then  existing  for  which  he  is  hardly  responsible 
because  the  higher  light  has  not  yet  broken 
in  upon  him.  This  is  evidenced  especially 
in  the  strange  combination  in  him  of  a  frank 
belief  in  a  life  of  the  senses  which  goes  along 
with  a  puritanical  reverence  for  the  gods,  and 
a  hatred  of  anything  that  falls  within  his  own 
definition  of  vice. 

To  sum  up,  if  I  may  again  be  forgiven  for 
re-expressing  an  opinion  elsewhere  printed, 
which  states  as  clearly  as  I  am  able  to  do  my 
conviction  of  where  the  play  stands  as  criti- 
cism, like  all  dramatic  work,  this  poem 
aims  to  present  the  actual  spirit  of  the  time  in 
which  the  actors  moved  upon  the  stage  of  life, 
and  to  reproduce  something  of  their  mental 
and  emotional  natures.  Any  criticism  of  the 
poets  who  figure  in  the  poem,  or  of  the  larger 
question  of  the  quarrel  between  tragedy  and 
comedy,  should  be  deduced  indirectly,  as 
implied  in  the  sympathetic  presentation  of 
both  sides,  not  based  exclusively  upon  direct 


330   BROWNING  AND  HIS  CENTURY 

expressions  of  opinion  on  either  side.  So 
regarded  it  would  seem  that  Browning  was 
able  to  appreciate  the  genius  of  Aristophanes 
as  well  as  that  of  Euripides,  but  that  he  con- 
sidered Aristophanes  to  have  value  chiefly 
in  relation  to  his  age,  as  the  artistic  mouth- 
piece of  its  long  -  established  usages,  while 
Euripides  had  caught  the  breath  of  the  future, 
and  was  the  mirror  of  the  prophetic  impulses 
of  his  age  rather  than  of  its  dominant  civiliza- 
tion. 

It  is  not  improbable  that  Landor's  fas- 
cinating portrayal  of  the  brilliant  Aspasia  may 
have  had  some  influence  upon  Browning's  con- 
ception of  Balaustion,  upon  the  intellectual  side 
at  least.  Alcibiades  says  that  many  people 
think  her  language  as  pure  and  elegant  as 
Pericles,  and  Pericles  says  she  was  never  seen 
out  of  temper  or  forgetful  of  what  argument  to 
urge  first  and  most  forcibly.  When  all  is  said, 
however,  it  may  be  that  the  "halo  irised 
around"  Balaustion's  head  was  due,  more  than 
to  any  one  else,  to  the  influence  of  the  memory 
of  Mrs.  Browning,  of  whom  she  is  made  to  say 
with  a  sublime  disregard  of  its  anachronism: 

"I  know  the  poetess  who  graved  in  gold, 
Among  her  glories  that  shall  never  fade, 
This  style  and  title  for  Euripides, 
The  Human  with  his  droppings  of  warm  tears." 


WALTER  SAVAGE  LANDOR 


CLASSIC  SURVIVALS  331 

After  such  a  study  of  Greek  life  as  this, 
wherein  every  available  incident  in  history, 
every  episode  in  the  plays  of  Aristophanes 
bearing  on  the  subject,  every  contemporary 
allusion  are  all  woven  together  with  such 
consummate  skill  that  the  very  soul  and  body 
of  the  time  is  imaged  forth,  the  classical  poems 
of  the  other  great  names  of  the  century  seem 
almost  like  child's  play.  Landor's  poems  on 
Greek  subjects  sound  like  imitations  in  in- 
ferior material  of  antiquity.  Arnold's  are 
even  duller.  Swinburne  tells  his  Greek  tales 
in  an  endless  flow  of  rhythmical,  musical  verse, 
which  occasionally  rises  into  the  realm  of 
having  something  to  say.  Morris  tells  his 
at  equal  length  in  a  manner  suggestive  of 
Chaucer  without  Chaucer's  snap,  but  where 
among  them  all  is  there  such  a  bit  of  sting- 
ing life  as  in  "  Pheidippedes "  or  "Echetlos?" 

Tennyson  has,  it  is  true,  written  some  al- 
together exquisite  verse,  upon  classical  themes, 
and  in  every  case  the  poems  are  not  descrip- 
tive nor  dramatic,  but  are  dramatic  solilo- 
quies, thus  approaching  in  form  Browning's 
dramatic  idyls.  One  of  the  most  beautiful  of 
these  is  "CEnone."  There  we  have  a  mere 
tradition  enlarged  upon  and  the  feelings  of 
QEnone  upon  the  desertion  of  Paris  ex- 
pressed with  a  richness  of  emotional  fervor 


332   BROWNING  AND  HIS  CENTURY 

in  a  setting  of  appropriate  nature  imagery 
which  carries  us  back  to  the  idyls  of  Theocritus. 
"Ulysses,"  again  gives  the  psychology  of  a 
wanderer  who  has  become  so  habituated  to 
adventures  that  he  is  quite  incapable  of 
settling  down  with  Penelope  for  the  remainder 
of  his  life.  One  cannot  quite  forgive  the  poet 
for  callitfg  the  ever  youthful  and  beautiful 
Penelope,  whose  hand  was  sought  by  so  many 
suitors,  and  who,  although  twenty  years  had 
passed,  might  still  be  quite  young,  an  "aged 
wife."  It  has  always  seemed  to  the  writer 
like  a  wholly  unnecessary  stab  at  a  very 
beautiful  story,  and  the  poem  would  have 
been  just  as  effective  if  Ulysses'  hunger  for 
lands  beyond  the  sun  had  not  been  coupled 
with  any  scorn  of  Penelope,  but  with  a  feeling 
of  pain  that  again  Fate  must  take  him  away 
from  her.  Aside  from  this  note  of  bad  taste  — 
bad,  because  it  shadows  a  picture  of  faith- 
fulness, cherished  as  an  almost  universal 
possession  of  humanity  —  the  poem  is  fine. 
There  is  also,  though  not  Greek,  the  remark- 
able study  of  Lucretius  going  mad  from  the 
effects  of  his  wife's  love  philter,  in  which 
the  most  fascinating  glimpses  of  his  philosophy 
of  atoms  are  caught  amid  his  maniacal  wan- 
derings, and,  last,  the  very  beautiful  Demeter 
and  Persephone. 


CLASSIC  SURVIVALS  333 

These  are  as  unique  in  their  way  as  Brown- 
ing's Greek  poems  are  in  theirs,  standing 
quite  apart  from  such  work  as  Morris',  or 
Swinburne's,  not  only  because  of  their  haunt- 
ing music,  which  even  Swinburne  cannot  equal, 
but  because  of  a  deeper  vein  of  thought  run- 
ning through  them.  As  far  as  thought  is  con- 
cerned, however,  all  pale  in  significance  the 
moment  they  are  placed  in  juxtaposition  with 
any  of  Browning's  classical  productions. 

Not  the  least  interesting  of  Browning's 
classical  poems  is  "Ixion."  In  his  treat- 
ment of  the  myth  of  Ixion  he  proves  him- 
self a  true  child  of  the  Greeks,  not  that  he 
makes  any  slavish  attempt  to  reproduce  a 
Greek  atmosphere  as  it  existed  in  the  life- 
time of  Greek  poetry,  but  he  exercises  that 
prerogative  which  the  Greek  poets  always 
claimed,  of  interpreting  a  myth  to  suit  their 
own  ends. 

It  has  become  a  sort  of  critical  axiom  to 
compare  Browning's  "Ixion"  with  the  "Pro- 
metheus" of  literature.  This  is  one  of  those 
catching  analogies  which  lay  hold  upon  the 
mind,  and  cannot  be  shaken  off  again  with- 
out considerable  difficulty.  Mr.  Arthur  Sy- 
mons  first  spoke  of  the  resemblance;  and 
almost  every  other  critic  with  the  exception  of 
Mr.  Nettleship  has  dwelt  mainly  upon  that 


334    BROWNING  AND  HIS  CENTURY 

aspect  of  the  poem  which  bears  out  the  com- 
parison. But  why,  it  might  very  well  be 
asked,  did  Browning,  if  he  intended  to  make 
another  Prometheus,  choose  Ixion  for  his 
theme?  And  the  answer  is  evident,  because 
in  the  story  of  Ixion  he  found  some  quality 
different  from  any  which  existed  in  the  story 
of  Prometheus,  and  which  was  especially 
suited  to  the  end  he  had  in  view. 

The  kernel  of  the  myth  of  Prometheus  as 
developed  by  ^Eschylus  is  proud,  unflinching 
suffering  of  punishment,  inflicted,  not  by  a 
god  justly  angry  for  sin  against  himself,  but 
by  a  god  sternly  mindful  of  his  own  prerog- 
atives, whose  only  right  is  might,  and  jealous 
of  any  interference  in  behalf  of  the  race  which 
he  detested  —  the  race  of  man.  Thus  Prome- 
theus stands  out  as  a  hero  in  Greek  mythology, 
a  mediator  between  man  and  the  blind  anger 
of  a  god  of  unconditional  power;  and  Prome- 
theus, with  an  equally  blind  belief  in  Fate, 
accepts  while  he  defies  the  punishment  in- 
flicted by  Zeus.  He  tacitly  acknowledges  the 
right  of  Zeus  to  punish  him,  since  he  confesses 
his  deeds  to  be  sins,  but,  nevertheless,  he  would 
do  exactly  the  same  thing  over  again: 

"By  my  choice,  my  choice 
I  freely  sinned  —  I  will  confess  my  sin  — 
And  helping  mortals  found  mine  own  despair. " 


CLASSIC  SURVIVALS  335 

On  the  other  hand,  Ixion  never  appears 
in  classic  lore  as  a  hero.  He  has  been  called 
the  "Cain"  of  Greece,  because  he  was  the 
first,  as  Pindar  says,  "to  introduce  to  mortal 
men  the  murder  of  kin  not  unaccompanied  by 
cunning."  Zeus  appears,  however,  to  have 
shown  more  leniency  to  him  for  the  crime  of 
killing  his  father-in-law  than  he  ever  did  to 
Prometheus,  as  he  not  only  purified  him  from 
murder,  but  invited  him  to  a  seat  among  the 
gods.  But  to  quote  Pindar  again,  "he  found 
his  prosperity  too  great  to  bear,  when  with 
infatuate  mind  he  became  enamored  of 
Hera.  .  .  .  Thus  his  conceit  drave  him 
to  an  act  of  enormous  folly,  but  the  man  soon 
suffered  his  deserts,  and  received  an  exquisite 
torture."  Ixion,  then,  in  direct  contrast 
to  Prometheus,  stands  forth  an  embodiment 
of  the  most  detestable  of  sins,  perpetrated 
simply  for  personal  ends.  To  depict  such 
a  man  as  this  in  an  attitude  of  defiance, 
and  yet  to  justify  his  defiance,  is  a  far  more 
difficult  problem  than  to  justify  the  already 
admired  heroism  of  Prometheus.  It  is  en- 
tirely characteristic  of  Browning  that  he 
should  choose  perhaps  the  most  unprincipled 
character  in  the  whole  range  of  Greek  my- 
thology as  his  hero.  He  is  not  content,  like 
Emerson,  with  simply  telling  us  that  "in  the 


336   BROWNING  AND  HIS  CENTURY 

mud  and  scum  of  things  there  alway,  alway 
something  sings";  his  aim  is  ever  to  bring 
us  face  to  face  with  reality,  and  to  open  our 
ears  that  we  may  hear  for  ourselves  this 
universal  song.  In  fine,  Browning  chose 
Ixion  and  not  another,  because  he  wanted 
above  all  things  an  unquestioned  sinner; 
and  the  task  he  set  himself  was  to  show  the 
use  of  sin  and  at  the  same  time  exonerate 
the  sinner  from  the  eternal  consequences  of 
his  act. 

So  mystical  is  the  language  of  the  poem 
that  it  is  extremely  difficult  to  trace  behind 
it  the  subtle  reasoning.  Mr.  Nettleship  has 
given  by  far  the  best  exposition  of  the  poem, 
though  even  he  does  not  seize  all  its  sug- 
gestiveness. 

Ixion,  the  sinner,  suffering  eternal  torment, 
questions  the  justice  of  such  torment.  The 
first  very  important  conclusion  to  which  he 
comes,  and  it  is  one  entirely  in  accord  with 
science,  is  that  sin  is  an  aberration  of  sense, 
merely  the  result  of  external  conditions  in 
which  the  soul  of  man  has  no  active  part. 
The  soul  simply  dreams,  but  once  fully 
awakened,  it  would  free  itself  from  this  bond- 
age of  sense  if  it  were  allowed  to  do  so.  Ixion 
argues  that  it  is  Zeus  that  hath  made  him  and 
not  he  himself,  and  if  he  has  sinned  it  is 


CLASSIC  SURVIVALS  337 

through  the  bodily  senses  which  Zeus  has 
conferred  upon  him,  and  if  he  were  the  friendly 
and  all-powerful  god  which  he  claimed  himself 
to  be  and  which  Ixion  believed  he  was,  why 
did  he  allow  these  distractions  of  sense  to  lead 
him  (Ixion)  into  sin  which  could  only  be  ex- 
piated by  eternal  punishment?  Without  body 
there  would  have  been  nothing  to  obstruct 
his  soul's  rush  upon  the  real;  and  with  one 
touch  of  pitying  power  Zeus  might  have  dis- 
persed "this  film-work,  eye's  and  ear's."  It 
is  entirely  the  fault  of  Zeus  that  he  had  sinned; 
and  having  done  so  will  external  torture  make 
him  repent  any  more  who  has  repented 
already?  This  is  the  old,  old  problem  that 
has  taxed  the  brains  of  many  a  philosopher 
and  the  faith  of  many  a  theologian  —  the 
reconcilement  of  the  existence  of  evil  with  an 
omnipotent  God.  Then  follows  a  comparison 
between  the  actions  of  Zeus,  a  god,  and  of 
Ixion,  the  human  king;  and  Ixion  declares 
could  he  have  known  all,  as  Zeus  does,  he 
would  have  warded  off  evil  from  his  subjects, 
would  have  seen  that  they  Were  trained  aright 
from  the  first  —  in  fact,  would  not  have 
allowed  evil  to  exist,  or  failing  this,  could  he 
have  seen  the  heart  of  the  criminals  and 
realized  how  they  repented  he  would  have 
given  them  a  chance  to  retrieve  their  past. 


338   BROWNING  AND  HIS  CENTURY 

Ixion  now  realizes  that  his  human  ideal  is 
higher  than  that  of  Zeus.  He  had  imagined 
him  possessed  of  human  qualities,  and  finds 
his  qualities  are  less  than  human.  What  must 
be  the  inevitable  result  of  arriving  at  such  a 
conclusion?  It  means  the  dethronement  of 
the  god,  and  either  a  lapse  into  hopeless 
atheism  or  the  recognition  that  the  concep- 
tion formed  of  the  god  was  that  of  the  human 
mind  at  an  earlier  stage  of  understanding. 
This  conception  becomes  crystallized  into  an 
anthropomorphic  god;  but  the  mind  of  man 
goes  onward  on  its  way  to  higher  heights,  and 
lo!  there  comes  a  day  when  the  god-ideal  of 
the  past  is  lower  than  the  human  ideal  of  the 
present.  It  is  such  a  crisis  as  this  that  Ixion 
has  arrived  at,  and  his  faith  is  equal  to  the 
strain.  Since  Zeus  is  man's  own  mind-made 
god,  Ixion's  tortures  must  be  the  natural  con- 
sequences of  his  sin,  and  not  the  arbitrary 
punishment  of  a  god;  and  what  is  Ixion's  sin 
as  Browning  has  interpreted  the  myth? 

The  sin  is  that  of  arrogance.  Ixion,  a  mere 
man,  strives  to  be  on  an  equality  with  gods. 
In  Lucian's  dialogue  between  Hera  and  Zeus 
the  stress  is  laid  upon  the  arrogance  of  Ixion. 
Jupiter  declares  that  Ixion  shall  pay  the 
"penalty  not  of  his  love  —  for  that  surely  is 
not  so  dreadful  a  crime  —  but  of  his  loud 


CLASSIC  SURVIVALS  339 

boasting."  Browning  raises  the  sin  into  a 
rarer  atmosphere  than  that  of  the  Greek  or 
Latin.  Zeus  and  Hera  may  be  taken  to  rep- 
resent the  attributes  of  power  and  love  as 
conceived  by  man  in  Divinity;  and  Ixion, 
symbolic  of  man,  arrogantly  supposes  that  he 
is  capable  of  putting  himself  on  an  equality 
with  Divinity  by  conceiving  the  entire  nature 
of  Divinity,  that  out  of  his  finite  mind  he  can 
construct  the  absolute  god,  and  this  is  the  sin, 
or,  better,  the  aberration  of  sense,  which  results 
in  the  crystallization  of  his  former  inadequate 
conceptions  into  an  anthropomorphic  god, 
and  causes  his  own  downfall.  Ixion,  now 
fully  aroused  to  the  fact  that  the  god  he  has 
been  defying  is  but  his  own  miserable  concep- 
tion of  God,  realizes  that  the  suffering  caused 
by  this  conception  of  God  is  the  very  means 
through  which  man  struggles  toward  higher 
ideals:  through  evil  he  is  brought  to  a  rec- 
ognition of  the  good;  from  his  agony  is  bred 
the  rainbow  of  hope,  which  ever  shines  above 
him  glorified  by  the  light  from  a  Purity  far 
beyond,  all  -  unobstructed.  Successive  con- 
ceptions of  God  must  sink;  but  man,  how- 
ever misled  by  them,  must  finally  burst 
through  the  obstructions  of  sense,  freeing  his 
spirit  to  aspire  forever  toward  the  light. 

"Ixion,"  then,  is  not  merely  an  argument 


340   BROWNING  AND  HIS  CENTURY 

against  eternal  punishment,  nor  a  picture  of 
heroic  suffering,  though  he  who  will  may  draw 
these  lessons  from  it,  but  it  is  a  tremendous 
symbol  of  the  spiritual  development  of  man. 
Pure  in  its  essence,  the  spirit  learns  through 
the  obstructions  of  sense  to  yearn  forever  for 
higher  attainment,  and  this  constitutes  the 
especial  blessedness  of  man  as  contrasted  with 
Zeus.  He,  like  the  Pythagorean  Father  of 
Number,  is  the  conditioned  one;  but  man  is 
privileged  through  all  aeons  of  time  to  break 
through  conditions,  and  thus  Ixion,  trium- 
phant, exclaims: 

"Where  light,  where  light  is,  aspiring 
Thither  I  rise,  whilst  thou  —  Zeus,  keep  the  godship  and 

sink. " 

In  these  poems,  as  in  other  phases  of  his  work, 
Browning  runs  the  gamut  of  life,  of  art,  and 
of  thought.  He  has  set  a  new  standard  in 
regard  to  the  handling  of  classic  material, 
one  which  should  open  the  field  of  classic 
lore  afresh  to  future  poets.  Instead  of  try- 
ing to  ape  in  more  or  less  ineffectual  imita- 
tions the  style  and  thought  of  the  great 
masters  of  antiquity,  or  simply  use  their 
mythology  as  a  well-spring  of  romance  to  be 
clothed  in  whatever  vagaries  of  style  the 
individual  poet  might  be  able  to  invent,  the 


CLASSIC  SURVIVALS  341 

aim  of  the  future  poet  should  be  to  recon- 
struct the  life  and  thought  of  that  wonderful 
civilization.  One  playwright,  at  least,  has 
made  a  step  in  the  right  direction.  I  refer 
to  Gilbert  Murray,  whose  classical  scholarship 
has  thrown  so  much  light  upon  the  vexed 
questions  of  Browning's  attitude  toward  Eu- 
ripides, and  who,  in  his  "Andromache,"  has 
written  a  play,  not  in  classical,  but  in  modern 
form,  which  seems  to  bring  us  more  into  touch 
with  the  life  of  Homer's  day  than  even  Homer 
himself. 


vn 

PROPHETIC   VISIONS 

THE  division  between  centuries,  thougn 
it  be  an  arbitrary  one,  does  actually 
appear  to  mark  fairly  definite  steps  in  human 
development,  and  already  there  are  indica- 
tions that  the  twentieth  century  is  taking  on 
a  character  quite  distinct  from  that  of  the 
nineteenth.  It  looks  now  as  if  it  were  to  be 
the  century  of  the  realization  of  mankind's 
wildest  dreams  in  the  past.  Air  navigation, 
the  elixir  of  life,  perpetual  motion,  are  some 
of  them.  About  the  first  no  one  can  now 
have  much  skepticism,  for  if  airships  are  not 
as  yet  common  objects  of  the  everyday  sky, 
they,  at  least,  occupy  a  large  share  of  atten- 
tion in  the  magazines,  while  the  aviator,  a 
being  who  did  not  exist  in  the  last  century,  is 
now  the  hero  of  the  hour. 

With  regard  to  the  second,  though  no 
sparkling  elixir  distilled  from  some  rare  flower, 
such  as  that  Septimius  Felton  sought  in 
Hawthorne's  tale,  has  been  discovered,  the 
great  scientist  Metchnikoff  has  brought  to 

342 


PROPHETIC  VISIONS  343 

light  a  preserver  of  youth  more  in  keeping 
with  the  science  of  the  day — namely,  a  microbe, 
possessing  power  to  destroy  the  poison  that 
produces  age.  Whether  perpetual  youth  is 
to  lead  to  immortality  in  the  flesh  will  prob- 
ably be  a  question  for  other  centuries  to 
discuss,  though  if  Metchnikoff  is  right  there 
is  no  reason  why  we  should  not  retain  our 
youthfulness  all  our  lives  in  this  century. 
Add  to  this,  machinery  run  by  the  perpetual 
energy  of  radium  —  a  possibility,  if  radium 
can  ever  be  obtained  in  sufficient  quantities 
to  supply  the  needed  power  to  keep  modern 
civilization  on  its  ceaseless  "go" — and  we  may 
picture  to  ourselves,  before  the  end  of  the 
twentieth  century,  youths  of  ninety  starting 
forth  on  voyages  of  thirty  years  in  radium 
ships,  which,  like  the  fairy  watch  of  the  Prin- 
cess Rossetta,  will  never  go  wrong  and  will 
never  need  to  be  wound  up,  metaphorically 
speaking.  It  would  almost  seem  as  if  some 
method  of  enlarging  the  earth,  or  of  arrang- 
ing voyages  to  the  moon  and  Mars,  would  be 
necessary  in  order  to  give  the  new  radium 
machinery  sufficient  scope  for  its  activities. 
However,  at  present  it  seems  unlikely  that  it 
will  ever  be  possible  to  produce  more  than 
half  an  ounce  of  radium  a  year.  As  it  would 
take  a  ton  to  run  one  ship  for  thirty  years,  and 


344   BROWNING  AND  HIS  CENTURY 

the  expense  would  be  something  almost  in- 
calculable, it  is  a  dream  only  to  be  realized 
by  the  inventing  of  methods  by  which  the 
feeble  radio-activity  known  to  exist  in  many 
other  substances  can  be  utilized.  These 
methods  have  not  yet  been  invented,  but 
it  is  a  good  deal  that  they  have  been 
thought  of,  for  what  man  thinks  of  he  gener- 
ally seems  to  have  the  indomitable  energy  to 
accomplish. 

How  such  inventions  as  these,  even  if  very 
far  from  attaining  success,  may  affect  the 
social  and  thought  ideals  of  the  century  it  is 
impossible  to  say.  The  automobile  is  said  to 
have  brought  about  a  change,  not  altogether 
beneficial,  to  the  intellectual  and  artistic 
growth  of  society  to-day.  It  has  taken  such 
powerful  possession  of  the  minds  of  humanity 
that  homes  have  been  mortgaged,  music  and 
books  and  pictures  have  been  sacrificed,  in 
order  that  all  the  money  procurable  could  be 
put  into  the  machines  and  their  running. 
You  hear  complaints  against  the  automobile 
from  writers,  musicians,  and  artists.  The  only 
thing  that  really  has  a  good  sale  is  the  auto- 
mobile. What  effect  rushing  about  so  con- 
stantly at  high  speed  in  the  open  air  is  to 
have  on  the  brain-power  is  another  interesting 
problem.  Perhaps  it  is  this  growing  subjec- 


PROPHETIC  VISIONS  345 

live  delight  in  motion  which  is  causing  the 
development  of  an  artistic  taste  dependent 
upon  motion  as  its  chief  element.  Motion 
pictures  and  dancing  appeal  to  the  public 
with  such  insistence  that  plays  will  not  hold 
successfully  without  an  almost  exaggerated 
attention  to  action  and  dancing,  which,  when- 
ever it  is  at  all  possible,  make  a  part  of 
the  "show." 

The  pictures  of  the  new  school  of  pain- 
ters, the  futurists,  also  reveal  the  craze  for 
motion.  They  try  to  put  into  their  pictures 
the  successive  and  decidedly  blurred  impres- 
sions, from  the  illustrations  I  have  seen,  of 
scenes  in  motion,  with  a  result  that  is  certainly 
startling  and  interesting,  but  which  it  is 
difficult  to  believe  is  beautiful.  One  has  a 
horrible  suspicion  that  all  this  emphasis  up- 
on motion  in  art  is  a  running  to  seed  of  the 
art  which  appeals  to  the  eye  and  with  a 
psychological  content  derived  principally  from 
sensation.  Perhaps  in  some  other  century, 
fatuous  humanity  will  like  to  listen  to  operas 
or  to  plays  in  a  pitch-dark  theatre.  This  will 
represent  the  going  to  seed  of  the  art  which 
appeals  to  the  ear,  and  a  psychological  con- 
tent derived  principally  from  sentiment. 

While  movement  seems  to  be  the  keynote 
of  the  century  thus  far,  in  its  everyday  life 


346   BROWNING  AND  HIS  CENTURY 

and  in  its  art  manifestation,  very  interesting 
developments  are  taking  place  in  scientific 
theories  and  in  philosophy,  as  well  as  in  the 
world  of  education  and  sociology. 

In  relation  to  Browning  and  the  other  chief 
poets  of  the  nineteenth  century,  the  only 
aspects  of  interest  are  in  the  region  of  thought 
and  social  ideals. 

With  the  exception  of  Tennyson,  no  other 
of  the  chief  poets  of  the  century  need  be  con- 
sidered in  this  connection  with  Browning, 
because,  as  we  have  seen  in  a  previous  chapter, 
they  reflected  on  the  whole  the  prevalent  dis- 
belief and  doubt  of  the  century  which  came 
with  the  revelations  of  science.  Many  people 
have  regarded  Tennyson  as  the  chief  prophet 
of  the  century.  He  seems,  however,  to  the 
present  writer  to  have  held  an  attitude  which 
reflected  the  general  tone  of  religious  aspira- 
tion in  the  century,  rather  than  one  which 
struck  a  new  note  indicating  the  direction 
in  which  future  religious  aspiration  might 
turn. 

The  conflict  in  his  mind  is  between  doubt 
and  belief.  To  doubt  he  has  often  given  the 
most  poignant  expression,  as  in  his  poem  called 
"Despair."  The  story  is  of  a  man  and  his 
wife  who  have  lost  all  religious  faith  through 
the  reading  of  scientific  books: 


PROPHETIC  VISIONS  347 

"Have  I  crazed  myself  over  their  horrible  infidel  writings? 

O,  yes, 
For  these  are  the  new  dark  ages,  you  see,  of  the  popular 

press, 

When  the  bat  comes  out  of  his  cave,  and  the  owls  are  whoop- 
ing at  noon, 
And  doubt  is  the  lord  of  the  dunghill,  and  crows  to  the  sun 

and  the  moon, 
Till  the  sun  and  the  moon  of  our  science  are  both  of  them 

turned  into  blood. 
And  hope  will    have   broken    her  heart,  running  after    a 

shadow  of  good; 
For  their  knowing  and  know-nothing  books  are  scatter'd  from 

hand  to  hand  — 
We  have  knelt  in  your  know-all  chapel,  too,  looking  over  the 

sand." 

If  the  effect  of  science  was  bad  upon  this 
weak-minded  pair,  the  effect  of  religion  as  it 
had  been  taught  them  was  no  better.  The 
absolute  hopelessness  of  a  blasted  faith  in 
all  things  reaches  its  climax  in  the  following 
stanzas : 

"And  the  suns  of  the  lmift.lp.aa  universe  sparkled  and  shone 

in  the  sky, 
Flashing  with  fires  as  of  God,  but  we  knew  that  their  light 

was  a  lie  — 
Bright  as  with  deathless  hope  —  but,  however  they  sparkled 

and  shone, 
The  dark  little  worlds  running  round  them  were  worlds  of 

woe  like  our  own  — 

No  soul  in  the  heaven  above,  no  soul  on  the  earth  below, 
A  fiery  scroll  written  over  with  lamentation  and  woe. 


348   BROWNING  AND  HIS  CENTURY 

"See,  we  were  nursed  in  the  drear  nigh tf old  of  your  fatalist 

creed, 
And  we  turn'd  to  the  growing  dawn,  we  had  hoped  for  a  dawn 

indeed, 
\Vhen  the  light  of  a  sun  that  was  coming  would  scatter  the 

ghosts  of  the  past. 
And  the  cramping  creeds  that  had   madden'd  the  peoples 

would  vanish  at  last, 
And  we  broke  away  from  the  Christ,  our  human  brother  and 

friend, 
For  He  spoke,  or  it  seemed  that  He  spoke,  of  a  hell  without 

help,  without  end. 

"Hoped  for  a  dawn,  and  it  came,  but  the  promise  had  faded 

away; 
We  had  passed  from  a  cheerless  night  to  the  glare  of  a  drearier 

day; 

He  is  only  a  cloud  and  a  smoke  who  was  once  a  pillar  of  fire, 
The  guess  of  a  worm  in  the  dust  and  the  shadow  of  its  desire — • 
Of  a  worm  as  it  writhes  in  a  world  of  the  weak  trodden  down 

by  the  strong, 
Of  a  dying  worm  in  a  world,  all  massacre,  murder  and  wrong." 

There  are  many  hopeful  passages  in  Tenny- 
son to  offset  such  deep  pessimism  as  is  ex- 
pressed in  this  one,  which,  moreover,  being 
a  dramatic  utterance  it  must  be  remembered, 
does  not  reflect  any  settled  conviction  on  the 
poet's  part,  though  it  shows  him  liable  to 
moods  of  the  most  extreme  doubt.  In  "The 
Ancient  Sage"  the  agnostic  spirit  of  the 
century  is  fully  described,  but  instead  of 
leading  to  a  mood  of  despair,  the  mood  is  one 


PROPHETIC  VISIONS  349 

of  clinging  to  faith  in  the  face  of  all  doubt. 
The  sage  speaking,  says: 

"Thou  canst  not  prove  the  Nameless,  0  my  son, 
Nor  canst  thou  prove  the  world  thou  movest  in, 
Thou  canst  not  prove  that  thou  art  body  alone, 
Nor  canst  thou  prove  that  thou  art  both  in  one. 
Thou  canst  not  prove  thou  art  immortal,  no, 
Nor  yet  that  thou  art  mortal  —  nay,  my  son, 
Thou  canst  not  prove  that  I  who  speak  with  thee, 
Are  not  thyself  in  converse  with  thyself, 
For  nothing  worthy  proving  can  be  proven, 
Nor  yet  disproven.     Wherefore  thou  be  wise, 
Cleave  ever  to  the  sunnier  side  of  doubt, 
And  cling  to  Faith  beyond  the  forms  of  Faith! 
She  reels  not  in  the  storm  of  warring  words, 
She  brightens  at  the  clash  of  'Yes'  and  'No.' 
She  sees  the  best  that  glimmers  thro'  the  worst, 
She  feels  the  sun  is  hid  but  for  a  night, 
She  spies  the  summer  thro'  the  winter  bud, 
She  tastes  the  fruit  before  the  blossom  falls, 
She  hears  the  lark  within  the  songless  egg, 
She  finds  the  fountain  where  they  wail'd  Mirage!" 

There  is  nothing  here  more  reassuring  than 
a  statement  made  by  the  sage,  based  upon 
no  argument,  nor  revelation,  nor  intuition  — 
nothing  but  the  utilitarian  doctrine  that  it 
will  be  wiser  to  cling  to  Faith  beyond  Faith! 
This  is  a  sample  of  the  sort  of  assurance  in 
the  reality  of  God  and  of  immortality  which 
Tennyson  was  in  the  habit  of  giving.  In  the 


350   BROWNING  AND  HIS  CENTURY 

poem  called  "Vastness"  he  presents  with 
genuine  power  a  pessimistic  view  of  humanity 
and  civilization  in  all  its  various  phases  — 
all  of  no  use,  neither  the  good  any  more  than 
the  bad,  "if  we  all  of  us  end  but  in  being 
our  own  corpse-coffins  at  last?"  The  effect  of 
the  dismal  atmosphere  of  the  poem  as  a 
whole  is  supposed  to  be  dissipated  by  the  last 
stanza : 

"Peace,  let  it  be!  for  I  loved  him,  and  love  him  forever: 
the  dead  are  not  dead  but  alive." 

The  conviction  here  of  immortality  through 
personal  love  is  born  of  the  feeling  that  his 
friend  whom  he  has  loved  must  live  forever. 
The  note  of  "In  Memoriam"  is  sounded 
again.  Tennyson's  philosophy,  in  a  nutshell, 
seems  to  be  that  doubts  are  not  so  much  over- 
come as  quieted  by  a  struggling  faith  in  the 
truths  of  religion,  of  which  the  chief  assurance 
lies  in  the  thought  of  personal  love.  Not  as 
in  Browning,  that  human  love,  because  of  its 
beauty  and  ecstasy,  is  a  symbol  of  divine 
love,  but  because  of  its  wish  to  be  reunited 
to  the  one  beloved  is  an  earnest  of  continued 
existence.  While  Tennyson's  poetry  is  sat- 
urated with  allusions  to  the  science  of  the 
century,  it  seems  to  be  ever  the  dark  side  of 
the  doctrine  of  evolution  that  is  dwelt  upon 


PROPHETIC  VISIONS  351 

by  him,  while  his  religion  is  held  to  in  spite  of 
the  truths  of  science,  not  because  the  truths 
of  science  have  given  him  in  any  way  a  new 
revelation  of  beauty. 

Much  more  emphasis  has  been  laid  upon 
Tennyson's  importance  as  a  prophet  in  re- 
ligious matters  than  seems  to  the  present 
writer  warranted.  He  did  not  even  keep 
pace  with  the  thought  of  the  century,  though 
his  poetry  undoubtedly  reflected  the  liberalized 
theology  of  the  earlier  years  of  the  second  half 
of  the  century.  As  Joseph  Jacobs  says,  "In 
Memoriam"  has  been  to  the  Broad  Church 
Movement  what  the  "Christian  Year"  has 
been  to  the  High  Church.  But  where  is  the 
Broad  Church  now?  Tennyson  was,  on  the 
whole,  adverse  to  evolution,  which  has  been 
almost  an  instinct  in  English  speculation  for 
the  last  quarter  of  a  century.  So  far  as  he 
was  the  voice  of  his  age  in  speculative  mat- 
ters, he  only  represented  the  thought  of  the 
"sixties." 

What  vision  Tennyson  did  have  came 
not  through  intuition  or  the  higher  reason, 
but  through  his  psychic  power  of  self- 
hypnotism.  In  "The  Ancient  Sage"  is  a 
passage  describing  the  sort  of  trance  into 
which  he  could  evidently  cause  himself  to 
fall: 


352   BROWNING  AND  HIS  CENTURY 

"For  more  than  once  when  I 
Sat  all  alone,  revolving  in  myself 
The  word  that  is  the  symbol  of  myself, 
The  mortal  limit  of  the  self  was  loosed, 
And  passed  into  the  Nameless,  as  a  cloud 
Melts  into  Heaven.    I  touch'd  my  limbs,  the  limbs 
Were  strange,  not  mine  —  and  yet  no  shade  of  doubt, 
But  utter  clearness,  and  thro'  loss  of  self, 
The  gain  of  such  large  lif  e  as  match'd  with  ours 
Were  sun  to  spark  —  unshadowable  in  words, 
Themselves  but  shadows  of  a  shadow  world." 

Such  trances  have  been  of  common  oc- 
currence in  the  religious  life  of  the  world,  as 
Professor  James  has  shown  so  exhaustively  in 
his  great  book,  "Varieties  of  Religious  Ex- 
perience." And  in  that  book,  too,  it  is 
maintained,  against  the  scientific  conclusions, 
that  such  ecstasies  "signify  nothing  but  sug- 
gested and  imitated  hypnoid  states,  on  an 
intellectual  basis  of  superstition,  and  a  cor- 
poral one  of  degeneration  and  hysteria,"  that 
mystical  states  have  an  actual  value  as  rev- 
elations of  the  truth.  After  passing  in 
review  many  examples  of  ecstasy  and  trance, 
from  the  occasional  experiences  of  the  poets 
to  the  constant  experiences  of  the  mediaeval 
mystics  and  the  Hindu  Yogis,  he  finally  comes 
to  the  interesting  conclusion  that: 

"This  overcoming  of  all  the  usual  barriers  between  the 
individual  and  the  absolute  is  the  great  mystic  achievement. 


PROPHETIC  VISIONS  353 

In  mystic  states  we  both  become  one  with  the  Absolute  and 
we  become  aware  of  our  one-ness.  This  is  the  everlasting 
and  triumphant  mystical  tradition,  hardly  altered  by  dif- 
ferences of  clime  or  creed.  In  Hinduism,  in  Neoplatonism, 
in  Sufism,  in  Christian  mysticism,  in  Whitmanism,  we  find 
the  same  recurring  note,  so  that  there  is  about  mystical 
utterances  an  eternal  unanimity  —  which  ought  to  make  a 
critic  stop  and  think,  and  which  brings  it  about  that  the 
mystical  classics  have,  as  has  been  said,  neither  birthday  nor 
native  land." 

The  witness  given  religion  in  Tennyson's 
mystical  trances  is  then  his  most  valuable 
contributioi  to  the  speculative  thought  of  the 
century,  and  in  a  sense  is  prophetic  of  the  twen- 
tieth century,  because  in  this  century  revela- 
tions attained  in  this  way  have  been  given  a 
credence  long  denied  them  except  in  the  case 
of  the  uneducated  and  super-emotional,  by  a 
man  of  the  sound  scholarship  and  good  judg- 
ment of  Professor  James. 

How  fully  Browning  was  a  representative 
of  the  thought  of  this  time,  combining  as 
he  did  an  intuitional  with  a  scientific  out- 
look has  already  been  shown.  Evolution 
means  for  him  the  progress  toward  the 
infinite,  and  is  full  of  beauty  and  promise. 
The  failures  in  nature  and  life  which  fill 
Tennyson  with  despair  furnish  to  Browning's 
mind  a  proof  of  the  existence  of  the  absolute, 
or  a  somewhere  beyond,  where  things  will  be 


354   BROWNING  AND  HIS  CENTURY 

righted.  Observation  shows  him  everywhere 
in  the  universe  the  existence  of  power  and 
mystery.  The  mystery  is  either  that  of  the 
incomprehensibleness  of  causes,  or  is  empha- 
sized in  the  existence  of  evil.  The  first  leads 
to  awe  and  wonder,  and  is  a  constant  spur 
to  mankind  to  seek  further  knowledge,  but  the 
poet  insists  that  the  knowledge  so  accu- 
mulated is  not  actual  gain,  but  only  a  means 
to  gain  in  so  far  as  it  keeps  bringing  home  to 
the  human  mind  the  fact  of  its  own  inade- 
quacy in  the  discovery  of  truth.  The  existence 
of  evil  leads  to  the  constant  effort  to  over- 
come it,  and  to  sympathy  and  pity,  and  as  the 
failure  of  knowledge  proves  a  future  of  truth 
to  be  won,  so  the  failure  of  mankind  to  attain 
perfection  in  moral  action  proves  a  future  of 
goodness  to  be  realized.  All  this  may  be 
found  either  explicitly  or  implied  in  the 
synthetic  philosophy  of  Herbert  Spencer, 
whose  fundamental  principles,  despite  the  fire 
of  criticism  to  which  he  has  been  subjected 
from  all  sides  —  science,  religion,  metaphysics, 
each  of  which  felt  it  could  not  claim  him 
exclusively  as  its  own,  yet  resenting  his 
inclusion  of  the  other  two  —  are  now,  in 
the  first  decade  of  the  twentieth  century, 
receiving  the  fullest  recognition  by  such 
masters  of  the  history  of  nineteenth-century 


PROPHETIC  VISIONS  355 

thought  as  Theodore  Merz  and  Emile  Bout- 
roux. 

People  often  forget  that  while  Spencer 
spent  his  life  upon  the  knowledge  or  scientific 
side  of  human  experience,  he  frequently  as- 
serted that  there  was  in  the  human  con- 
sciousness an  intuition  of  the  absolute  which 
was  the  only  certain  knowledge  possessed  by 
man.  Here  again  Browning  was  at  one  with 
Spencer.  Discussing  the  problem  of  a  future 
life  in  "La  Saisiaz,"  he  declares  that  God  and 
the  soul  are  the  only  facts  of  which  he  is 
absolutely  certain: 

"I  have  questioned  and  am  answered.    Question,  answer 

presuppose 
Two  points:    that  the  thing  itself  which  questions,  answers 

—  is,  it  knows; 

As  it  also  knows  the  thing  perceived  outside  itself  —  a  force 
Actual  ere  its  own  beginning,  operative  through  its  course, 
Unaffected  by  its  end  —  that  this  thing  likewise  needs  must 

be; 
Call  this  —  God,  then,  call  that  —  soul,  and  both  —  the 

only  facts  for  me. 

Prove  them  facts?  That  they  o'erpass  my  power  of  proving, 
proves  them  such." 

To  this  scientific  and  metaphysical  side 
Browning  adds,  as  has  also  already  been 
pointed  out,  a  mystical  side  based  upon 
feeling.  His  revelations  of  divinity  do  not 


356   BROWNING  AND  HIS  CENTURY 

come  by  means  of  self-induced  trances,  as 
Tennyson's  seem  to  have  come,  but  through 
the  mystery  of  feeling.  This  mystical  state 
seems  to  have  been  his  habitual  one,  if  we  may 
judge  by  its  prominence  in  his  poetry.  He 
occasionally  descends  to  the  realm  of  reason, 
as  he  has  in  "La  Saisiaz,"  but  the  true  plane 
of  his  existence  is  up  among  the  exaltations  of 
aspiration  and  love.  His  cosmic  sense  is  a 
sense  of  God  as  Love,  and  is  the  quality  most 
characteristic  of  the  man.  It  is  like,  though 
perhaps  not  identical  with,  the  mysticism  of 
Whitman,  which  seems  to  have  been  an 
habitual  state.  He  writes:  "There  is,  apart 
from  mere  intellect,  in  the  make-up  of  every 
superior  human  identity,  a  wondrous  some- 
thing that  realizes  without  argument,  fre- 
quently without  what  is  called  education 
(though  I  think  it  the  goal  and  apex  of  all 
education  deserving  the  name),  an  intuition 
of  the  absolute  balance,  in  time  and  space, 
of  the  whole  of  this  multifariousness,  this 
revel  of  fools,  and  incredible  make-believe 
and  general  unsettledness  we  call  the  world; 
a  soul-sight  of  that  divine  clue  and  unseen 
thread  which  holds  the  whole  congeries  of 
things,  all  history  and  time,  and  all  events, 
however  trivial,  however  momentous,  like  a 
leashed  dog  in  the  hand  of  the  hunter." 


PROPHETIC  VISIONS  357 

This  mystic  mood  of  Browning's  which 
underlies  his  whole  work  —  even  a  work  like 
"The  Ring  and  the  Book,"  where  evil  in 
various  forms  is  rampant  and  seems  for  the 
time  being  to  conquer  —  is  nowhere  more 
fully,  and  at  the  same  time  more  co  cisely, 
expressed  than  in  his  poem  "Reverie,"  one  of 
his  last,  which  ends  with  a  full  revelation  of  this 
mystical  feeling,  from  which  the  less  inspired 
reasoning  of  "La  Saisiaz"  is  a  descent: 

"Even  as  the  world  its  life, 

So  have  I  lived  my  own  — 
Power  seen  with  Love  at  strife, 

That  sure,  this  dimly  shown  — 
Good  rare  and  evil  rife 

"Whereof  the  effect  be  — faith 

That,  some  far  day,  were  found 
Ripeness  in  things  now  rathe, 

Wrong  righted,  each  chain  unbound, 
Renewal  born  out  of  scathe. 

"Why  faith  — but  to  lift  the  load, 

To  leaven  the  lump,  where  lies 
Mind  prostrate  through  knowledge  owed 

To  the  loveless  Power  it  tries 
To  withstand,  how  vain!    In  flowed 

"Ever  resistless  fact: 

No  more  than  the  passive  clay 
Disputes  the  potter's  act, 

Could  the  whelmed  mind  disobey 
Knowledge  the  cataract. 


358   BROWNING  AND  HIS  CENTURY 

"But,  perfect  in  every  part, 

Has  the  potter's  moulded  shape, 

Leap  of  man's  quickened  heart, 
Throe  of  his  thought's  escape, 

Stings  of  his  soul  which  dart, 

"Through  the  barrier  of  flesh,  till  keen 

She  climbs  from  the  calm  and  clear, 
Through  turbidity  all  between 

From  the  known  to  the  unknown  here, 
Heaven's  'Shall  be'  from  Earth's  'Has  been'? 

"Then  life  is  —  to  wake  not  sleep, 

Rise  and  not  rest,  but  press 
From  earth's  level  where  blindly  creep 

Things  perfected  more  or  less, 
To  the  heaven's  height,  far  and  steep, 

"Where,  amid  what  strifes  and  storms 
May  wait  the  adventurous  quest, 

Power  is  Love  —  transports,  transforms, 
Who  aspired  from  worst  to  best, 

Sought  the  soul's  world,  spurned  the  worms! 

"I  have  faith  such  end  shall  be: 

From  the  first,  Power  was  —  I  knew. 
Life  has  made  clear  to  me 

That,  strive  but  for  closer  view, 
Love  were  as  plain  to  see. 

"When  see?    When  there  dawns  a  day, 

If  not  on  the  homely  earth, 
Then  yonder,  worlds  away, 

Where  the  strange  and  new  have  birth 
And  Power  comes  full  in  play." 


PROPHETIC  VISIONS  359 

Browning  has,  far  more  than  Tennyson, 
put  religious  speculation  upon  a  basis  where 
it  may  stand  irrespective  of  a  belief  in  the 
revelations  of  historical  Christianity.  For 
the  central  doctrine  of  Christianity  he  had 
so  profound  a  reverence  that  he  recurs  to  it 
again  and  again  in  his  poetry,  and  at  times 
his  feeling  seems  to  carry  him  to  the  verge  of 
orthodox  belief.  So  near  does  he  come  to  it 
that  many  religious  critics  have  been  con- 
vinced that  he  might  be  claimed  as  a  Christian 
in  the  orthodox  sense  of  the  word. 

A  more  careful  reading,  however,  of  such 
poems  as  "The  Death  in  the  Desert,"  and 
"Christmas  Eve  and  Easter  Day,"  upon 
which  rest  principally  the  claim  of  the  poet's 
orthodoxy,  will  reveal  that  no  certain  assertion 
of  a  belief  in  supernaturalism  is  made,  even 
though  the  poems  are  dramatic  and  it  might  be 
made  without  necessarily  expressing  the  feel- 
ing of  the  poet.  What  Browning  felt  was 
that  in  historical  Christianity  the  highest 
symbol  of  divine  love  had  been  reached. 
Though  he  may  at  times  have  had  moods  in 
which  he  would  fain  have  believed  true  an 
ideal  which  held  for  him  great  beauty,  his 
worth  for  his  age  was  in  saving  religion,  not 
upon  a  basis  of  faith,  but  upon  the  ground  of 
logical  arguments  deduced  from  the  failure 


360   BROWNING  AND  HIS  CENTURY 

of  knowledge,  of  his  personal  intuition  of  God 
and  his  mystical  vision  in  regard  to  the  na- 
ture of  God. 

So  complete  a  synthesis  is  this  that  only 
in  the  present  century  is  its  full  purport 
likely  to  be  realized.  The  thought  of  the 
century  is  showing  everywhere  a  strong  reac- 
tion away  from  materialism  and  toward  relig- 
ious thought. 

Even  in  the  latest  stronghold  of  science, 
psychology,  as  we  have  already  seen,  there  is 
no  formula  which  will  explain  the  existence 
of  individuality.  While  the  scientists  them- 
selves plod  on,  often  quite  unconscious  that 
they  are  not  dealing  with  ultimates,  the 
thinkers  are  no  longer  satisfied  with  a  philos- 
ophy of  materialism,  and  once  more  it  is 
being  recognized  that  the  province  of  philos- 
ophy is  to  give  us  God,  the  soul  and  immor- 
tality. 

It  is  especially  interesting  in  this  connec- 
tion to  observe  that  Germany,  the  land  of 
destructive  biblical  criticism,  which  Brown- 
ing before  the  middle  of  the  century  handled 
with  the  consummate  skill  characteristic  of 
him,  by  accepting  its  historical  conclusions 
while  conserving  the  spirit  of  Christianity,  has 
now  in  the  person  of  Professor  Rudolf  Eucken 
done  an  almost  similar  thing.  Like  Brown- 


BROWNING  AT  77  (1889) 


PROPHETIC  VISIONS  361 

ing,  he  is  a  strong  individualist  and  believes 
that  the  development  of  the  soul  is  the  one 
thing  of  supreme  moment.  "There  is  a 
spontaneous  springing  up  of  the  individual 
spiritual  life,"  he  writes,  "only  within  the  soul 
of  the  individual.  All  social  and  all  histori- 
cal life  that  does  not  unceasingly  draw  from 
this  source  falls  irrecoverably  into  a  state  of 
stagnation  and  desolation.  The  individual 
can  never  be  reduced  to  the  position  of  a  mere 
member  of  society,  of  a  church,  of  a  state; 
notwithstanding  all  external  subordination, 
he  must  assert  an  inner  superiority;  each 
spiritual  individual  is  more  than  the  whole 
external  world." 

He  calls  his  system  "activism,"  which 
merely  seems  to  be  another  way  of  saying  that 
the  soul-life  is  one  of  aspiration  toward  moral 
ideals  and  the  will  to  carry  them  out.  Such  a 
life,  he  thinks,  demands  a  new  world  and  a 
new  character  in  man,  and  is  entirely  at 
variance  with  nature.  "Our  whole  life  is  an 
indefatigable  seeking  and  pressing  forward. 
In  self -consciousness  the  framework  is  given 
which  has  to  be  filled;  in  it  we  have  acquired 
only  the  basis  upon  which  the  superstructure 
has  to  be  raised.  We  have  to  find  experience 
in  life  itself  to  reveal  something  new,  to  de- 
velop life,  to  increase  its  range  and  depth. 


362   BROWNING  AND  HIS  CENTURY 

The  endeavor  to  advance  in  spirituality,  to 
win  through  struggle,  is  the  soul  of  the  life 
of  the  individual  and  the  work  of  universal 
history."  Readers  of  Browning  will  cer- 
tainly not  feel  that  there  is  anything  new  in 
this. 

In  so  far,  however,  as  he  finds  the  spiritual 
life  at  variance  with  nature  he  parts  com- 
pany with  Browning,  showing  himself  to  be 
under  the  influence  of  the  dualism  of  the  past 
which  regarded  matter  and  spirit  as  antago- 
nistic. In  Browning's  view,  matter  and  spirit 
are  the  two  aspects  of  God,  in  the  one,  power 
being  manifested;  in  the  other,  love. 

It  follows  naturally  from  this,  that  Eucken 
does  not  think  of  evil  as  a  means  by  which 
good  is  developed.  He  prefers  to  regard  it  as 
unexplained,  and  forever  with  us  to  be  over- 
come. Its  reduction  to  a  means  of  realizing 
the  good  leads,  he  thinks,  "to  a  weakening 
which  threatens  to  transform  the  mighty 
world-struggle  into  an  artistic  arrangement 
of  things  and  into  an  effeminate  play,  and 
which  takes  away  that  bitterness  from  evil 
without  which  there  is  no  strenuousness  in  the 
struggle  and  no  vitality  in  life.  Thus  it  re- 
mains true  that  religion  does  not  so  much 
explain  as  presuppose  evil."  An  attempt 
to  explain  evil,  he  says,  belongs  to  speculation 


PROPHETIC  VISIONS  363 

rather  than  to  religion.  That  he  has  an 
inkling  of  the  region  to  which  speculation 
might  lead  him  is  shown  when  it  is  realized, 
that  upon  his  explanation,  as  one  critic  of  him 
has  said,  it  might  be  possible  to  find  "some 
reconciliation  in  the  fact  that  this  world  with 
its  negations  had  awakened  the  spiritual  life 
to  its  absolute  affirmation,  which  could, 
therefore,  not  be  in  absolute  opposition." 

In  leaving  aside  speculation  and  confining 
himself  to  what  he  considers  the  religious 
aspects  of  life,  he  no  doubt  strengthens  himself 
as  a  leader  of  those  whose  speculative  powers 
have  not  yet  been  developed,  or  who  can  put 
one  side  of  the  mind  to  sleep  and  accept  with 
the  other  half-truths.  The  more  developed 
mind,  however,  will  prefer  Browning's  greater 
inclusiveness.  To  possess  a  complete  view 
of  life,  man  must  live  his  own  life  as  a  human 
being  struggling  to  overcome  the  evil,  at  the 
same  time  keeping  in  mind  the  fact  that  evil  is 
in  a  sense  the  raw  material  provided  by  God, 
or  the  Absolute,  or  whatever  name  one  chooses 
to  give  to  the  all-powerful  and  all-loving,  from 
which  the  active  soul  of  man  is  to  derive  a 
richness  of  beauty  and  harmony  of  develop- 
ment not  otherwise  possible.  Eucken's  at- 
titude toward  Jesus  is  summed  up  in  a  way 
which  reminds  one  strongly  of  the  position 


364   BROWNING  AND  HIS  CENTURY 

taken  in  the  comment  made  at  the  end  of 
"The  Death  in  the  Desert."  He  writes: 
"The  position  of  the  believer  in  the  universal 
Christian  Church  is  grounded  upon  a  relation 
to  God  whose  uniqueness  emerges  from  the 
essential  divinity  of  Jesus;  only  on  this  sup- 
position can  the  personality  of  Christ  stand 
as  the  unconditional  Lord  and  Master  to 
whom  the  ages  must  do  homage.  And  while 
the  person  of  Jesus  retains  a  wonderful 
majesty  apart  from  dogma,  its  greatness  is 
confined  to  the  realm  of  humanity,  and  what- 
ever of  new  and  divine  life  it  brings  to  us 
must  be  potential  and  capable  of  realization 
in  us  all.  We  therefore  see  no  more  in  this 
figure  the  normative  and  universally  valid 
type  of  all  human  life,  but  merely  an  in- 
comparable individuality  which  cannot  be 
directly  imitated.  At  any  rate  the  figure  of 
Jesus,  thus  understood  in  all  its  height  and 
pure  humanity,  can  no  longer  be  an  object  of 
faith  and  divine  honor.  All  attempts  to 
take  shelter  in  a  mediating  position  are 
shattered  against  a  relentless  either  —  or. 
Between  man  and  God  there  is  no  inter- 
mediate form  of  being  for  us,  for  we  cannot 
sink  back  into  the  ancient  cult  of  heroes.  If 
Jesus,  therefore,  is  not  God,  if  Christ  is  not 
the  second  person  in  the  Trinity,  then  he  is  a 


PROPHETIC  VISIONS  365 

man;  not  a  man  like  any  average  man  among 
ourselves,  but  still  man.  We  can  therefore 
honor  him  as  a  leader,  a  hero,  a  martyr,  but 
we  cannot  directly  bind  ourselves  to  him  or 
root  ourselves  in  him;  we  cannot  submit  to 
him  unconditionally.  Still  less  can  we  make 
him  the  centre  of  a  cult.  To  do  so  from  our 
point  of  view  would  be  nothing  else  than  an 
intolerable  deification  of  a  human  being." 
The  comment  at  the  end  of  "The  Death  in 
the  Desert"  puts  a  similar  question,  and 
answers,  "Call  Christ,  then,  the  illimitable 
God,  Or  Lost!"  But  the  final  word  which 
casts  a  light  back  upon  the  previous  con- 
clusion is  "But,  'twas  Cerinthus  that  is  lost" 
—  the  man,  in  other  words,  who  held  the 
heresy  that  the  Christ  part  only  resided  in 
Jesus,  who  was  merely  human,  and  that  the 
divine  part  was  not  crucified,  having  flown 
away  before.  Thus  it  is  implied  that  neither 
those  who  believe  Jesus  divine,  nor  those  who 
believe  him  human,  are  lost,  but  those  who 
try  as  Cerinthus  did  to  make  a  compromise. 
The  same  note  is  struck  in  "Christmas  Eve," 
and  now  Professor  Eucken  takes  an  exactly 
similar  ground  in  regard  to  any  sort  of  com- 
promise, coming  out  boldly,  however,  as 
Browning  does  not  in  this  poem,  though  he 
makes  no  strong  argument  against  it  —  in 


366   BROWNING  AND  HIS  CENTURY 

the  acceptance  of  Christ  as  human.  Brown- 
ing's own  attitude  is  expressed  as  clearly  as  it 
is  anywhere  in  his  work  in  the  epilogue  to 
"Dramatis  Personse,"  in  which  the  conclusion 
is  entirely  in  sympathy  with  that  of  Eucken: 

"When  you  see  what  I  tell  you  —  nature  dance 
About  each  man  of  us,  retire,  advance, 
As  though  the  pageant's  end  were  to  enhance 

"His  worth,  and  —  once  the  life,  his  product  gained  — 
Roll  away  elsewhere,  keep  the  strife  sustained, 
And  show  thus  real,  a  thing  the  North  but  feigned  — 

"When  you  acknowledge  that  one  world  could  do 
All  the  diverse  work,  old  yet  ever  new, 
Divide  us,  each  from  other,  me  from  you  — 

"Why,  where's  the  need  of  Temple,  when  the  walls 
O'  the  world  are  that?    What  use  of  swells  and  falls 
From  Levites'  choir,  Priests'  cries,  and  trumpet  calls? 

"That  one  Face,  far  from  vanish,  rather  grows, 
Or  decomposes  but  to  recompose, 
Become  my  universe  that  feels  and  knows." 

The  hold  which  the  philosophy  of  Eucken 
seems  to  have  taken  upon  the  minds  of  many 
people  all  over  the  world  shows  that  it 
must  have  great  elements  of  strength.  That 
there  is  a  partial  resemblance  between  his 
thought,  which  belongs  to  the  end  of  the 
nineteenth  and  the  beginning  of  the  twentieth 
century,  and  Browning's  is  certain,  but  the 


PROPHETIC  VISIONS  367 

fact  remains  that  the  poet  made  a  synthesis 
of  the  elements  which  must  go  to  the  forming 
of  any  complete  religious  conceptions  of  the 
future  so  far  in  advance  of  his  own  century 
that  even  Eucken  is  in  some  respects  behind 
it. 

Another  interesting  instance  of  Brown- 
ing's presenting  a  line  of  reasoning  which 
resembles  very  strongly  one  phase  of  present- 
day  philosophy  is  to  be  found  in  "Bishop 
Blougram's  Apology."  The  worldly  Bishop 
gives  voice  to  good  pragmatic  doctrine, 
which  in  a  nutshell  is,  "believe  in,  or  rather 
follow,  that  ideal  which  will  be  of  the  most  use 
to  you,  and  if  it  turns  out  not  to  be  successful, 
then  try  another  one."  The  poet  declares 
that  Blougram  said  good  things  but  called 
them  by  wrong  names.  If  the  ideal  is  a  high 
one  there  is  no  great  danger  in  such  reasoning, 
but  it  can  very  easily  be  turned  into  sophistical 
arguments  for  an  ideal  of  living  to  thoroughly 
selfish  ends,  as  Blougram  actually  did.  The 
poem  might  almost  be  taken  as  a  prophetic 
criticism  of  the  weak  aspects  of  pragmatism. 

The  belief  in  immortality  which  pervades 
Browning's  work  often  comes  out  in  a  form 
suggesting  the  idea  of  reincarnation.  His 
future  for  the  human  soul  is  not  a  heaven  of 
bliss,  but  life  in  other  worlds  full  of  activity 


368    BROWNING  AND  HIS  CENTURY 

and  aspiration.  This  note  is  struck  in  "Para- 
celsus," where  life's  destiny  is  described  to  be 
the  climbing  of  pleasure's  heights  forever 
the  seeking  of  a  flying  point  of  bliss  remote. 
In  his  last  volume  the  idea  is  more  fully 
brought  out  in  "Rephan."  In  this  it  is  held 
that  a  state  of  perfect  bliss  might  grow 
monotonous,  and  that  a  preferable  state 
would  be  to  aspire,  yet  never  attain,  to  the 
object  aimed  at.  The  transmigration  is  from 
"Rephan,"  where  all  was  merged  in  a  neutral 
Best  to  Earth,  where  the  soul  which  had 
been  stagnating  would  have  an  opportunity  to 
strive,  not  rest.  The  most  beautiful  ex- 
pression, however,  of  the  idea  of  a  future  of 
many  lives  is  found  in  "One  Word  More": 

"So  it  seems:    I  stand  on  my  attainment. 
This  of  verse,  alone,  one  life  allows  me; 
Verse  and  nothing  else  have  I  to  give  you. 
Other  heights  in  other  lives,  God  willing: 
All  the  gifts  from  all  the  heights,  your  own,  Love!" 

Though  the  theory  of  reincarnation  is  so 
ancient  a  one,  and  one  entirely  discredited  by 
Christianity,  Browning  was  again  expressing 
an  ideal  which  was  to  be  revived  in  our  own 
day.  Oriental  thought  has  made  it  almost 
a  commonplace  of  talk.  Many  people  doubt- 
less speak  of  what  they  mean  to  do  in  their 
next  incarnation  without  having  the  thought 


PROPHETIC  VISIONS  369 

very  deeply  imbedded  in  their  consciousness, 
yet  the  mere  fact  that  one  hears  the  remark 
so  often  proves  what  a  hold  the  theory  has  on 
the  imagination  of  mankind.  As  Browning 
gives  it  in  "One  Word  More,"  the  successive 
incarnations  take  one  on  to  higher  heights  — 
"other  lives  in  other  worlds. "  Thus  regarded, 
it  is  the  final  outcome  of  evolution  and  prog- 
ress, a  process  to  be  carried  forward  in  other 
worlds  than  our  own,  and  has  no  degrading 
suggestion  of  a  degenerating,  because  of  sin, 
into  lower  forms  of  existence.  The  movement 
is  always  upward.  Thus  it  has  been  effected 
by  the  idea  that  progress  is  the  law  of  life, 
and  that  evolution  means,  on  the  whole, 
progress. 

Again,  in  the  liberality  of  his  social  ideals, 
combined  with  an  intensest  belief  in  the  su- 
premacy of  genuine  love,  he  was  the  forerun- 
ner of  Ibsen,  who,  the  world  is  beginning  to 
discover,  was  not  a  subverter  of  high  moral 
ideals,  as  it  had  thought,  but  a  prophet  of  the 
new  day,  when  to  be  untrue  to  the  highest 
ideal  of  love  will  be  accounted  the  greatest 
crime  of  one  human  being  against  another. 
From  "The  Doll's  House"  to  "When  We 
That  Are  Dead  Awaken"  the  same  lesson  is 
taught.  Few  people  realize  that  this  is  the 
keynote  of  Browning's  teaching,  or  would  be 


370   BROWNING  AND  HIS  CENTURY 

ready  to  regard  him  as  a  prophet  of  an  ideal 
of  love  which  shall  come  to  be  seen  as  the 
true  one  after  the  science  of  eugenics,  the 
latest  of  the  exact  sciences,  has  found  itself 
as  powerless  as  all  other  sciences  have  been  to 
touch  the  reality  of  life,  because  amid  all 
the  mysteries  of  the  universe  none  is  greater 
than  the  spiritual  mystery  of  love.  Among 
writers  who  are  to-day  recognizing  a  part  of 
the  truth,  at  least,  is  Ellen  Key,  but  neither 
she  nor  Ibsen  has  insisted  in  the  way  that 
Browning  has  upon  the  mystical  source  of 
human  love.  That  Browning  is  the  poet  who 
has  given  the  world  the  utmost  certainty  of 
God,  the  soul  and  immortality,  and  the  most 
inspiring  ideals  of  human  love,  will  be  more 
completely  recognized  in  the  future.  As  time 
goes  on  he  will  emerge  above  the  tumultuous 
intellectual  life  of  the  present,  which,  with  its 
enormous  increase  of  knowledge  of  phenomena, 
bringing  with  it  a  fairly  titanic  mastery  of  the 
forces  of  nature,  and  its  generation  of  multi- 
tudes of  ideas  upon  every  conceivable  sub- 
ject, many  of  them  trite,  many  of  them 
puerile,  and  some  of  them  no  doubt  of  genuine 
value,  obscures  for  the  time  being  the 
greatness  of  any  one  voice.  A  little  later, 
when  the  winnowing  of  ideas  shall  come, 
Browning  will  be  recognized  as  one  of  the 


PROPHETIC  VISIONS  371 

greatest  men  of  his  own  age  or  any  age  —  a 
man  combining  knowledge,  wisdom,  aspira- 
tion, and  vision  to  a  marvelous  degree.  He 
belongs  to  the  master-order  of  poets,  who 
write  some  things  which  will  pass  into  the 
popular  knowledge  of  the  day,  but  whose 
serious  achievements  will  be  read  and  studied 
by  the  cultured  and  scholarly  of  all  time.  No 
students  of  Greek  literature  will  feel  that  they 
can  omit  from  their  reading  his  Greek  poems, 
no  students  of  sociology  will  feel  that  they 
can  omit  from  their  reading  "The  Ring  and 
the  Book."  Lovers  of  the  drama  must  ever 
respond  to  the  beauty  of  "The  Blot  in  the 
'Scutcheon"  and  "Pippa  Passes."  Even  the 
student  of  verse  technique  will  not  be  able  to 
leave  Browning  out  of  account,  and  making 
allowances  for  the  fact  that  the  individuality  of 
his  style  sometimes  overasserts  itself,  he  will 
realize  more  and  more  its  freshness  and  its 
vividness,  its  power  of  suggestion,  and  its 
depths  of  emotional  fervor.  When  the  ro- 
manticism of  a  Keats  or  a  Shelley  has 
completely  worked  itself  out  in  musical  ef- 
florescence; from  which  all  thought-content 
has  disappeared,  there  may  grow  up  a  school 
of  poets  which  shall,  without  direct  imitation, 
develop  poetry  along  the  lines  of  vigor  and 
strength  in  form,  and  which  shall  have  for  its 


372   BROWNING  AND  HIS  CENTURY 

content  a  tremendous  sense  of  the  worth  of 
humanity  and  an  unshakable  belief  in  the 
splendor  of  its  destiny.  Virilists  might  well  be 
the  name  of  this  future  school  of  poets  who 
would  hark  back  to  Browning  as  their  in- 
spiration, and  a  most  pleasant  contrast  would 
they  be  to  the  sentimental  namby-pambyism 
which  passes  muster  as  poetry  in  much  of  the 
work  of  to-day. 

In  closing  this  volume  which  has  been  in- 
spired by  a  deep  sense  of  the  abiding  great- 
ness of  Robert  Browning,  it  has  been  my 
desire  to  put  on  record  in  some  way  my 
personal  indebtedness  to  his  poetry  as  an 
inspiration  not  only  to  high  thinking  and 
living,  but  as  a  genuine  revelation  to  me 
of  the  rare  possibilities  in  poetic  art,  for  I 
may  almost  say  that  Browning  was  my  first 
poet,  and  through  him,  strange  as  it  may  seem, 
I  came  to  an  appreciation  of  all  other  poets. 
His  poetry,  fortunately  for  me  an  early 
influence  in  my  life,  awakened  my,  until  then, 
dormant  faculty  for  poetic  appreciation.  I 
owe  him,  therefore,  a  double  debt  of  gratitude: 
Not  only  has  he  given  me  the  joy  of  know- 
ing his  own  great  work,  but  through  him  I 
have  entered  the  land  of  all  poesie,  led  as  I 
truly  think  by  his  sympathy  with  the  scientific 
dispensation  into  which  I  was  born.  His 


PROPHETIC  VISIONS  373 

thought  has  always  seemed  so  naturally  akin 
to  my  own  that  it  has  never  seemed  to  me 
obscure.  Finding  such  thoughts  expressed 
through  the  medium  of  great  poetic  genius, 
the  beauty  of  poetic  expression  was  brought 
home  to  me  as  it  never  had  been  before,  and 
hence  the  poetic  expression  of  all  thought  be- 
came a  deep  pleasure  to  me. 

So  much  interpretation  and  criticism  of 
Browning  has  been  given  to  the  world  during 
the  last  twenty  years,  that  further  work  in 
that  direction  seems  hardly  necessary  for  the 
present.  There  will  for  many  a  day  to  come 
be  those  who  feel  him  to  be  among  the  greatest 
poets  the  world  has  seen,  and  those  who  find 
much  more  to  blame  in  his  work  than  to  praise. 

I  have  tried  to  give  a  few  suggestions  in 
regard  to  what  Robert  Browning  actually 
was  in  relation  to  his  time.  The  nineteenth 
century  was  so  remarkable  a  one  in  the 
complexity  of  its  growth,  both  in  practical 
affairs  and  in  intellectual  developments,  that 
it  has  been  possible  in  the  space  of  one  volume 
to  touch  only  upon  the  most  important  aspects 
under  each  division,  and  to  try  to  show  what 
measure  of  influence  important  movements 
had  in  the  molding  of  the  poet's  genius. 

Though  in  the  nature  of  the  case  the  treat- 
ment could  not  be  exhaustive,  I  hope  to 


374   BROWNING  AND  HIS  CENTURY 

have  opened  out  a  sufficient  number  of  path- 
ways into  the  fascinating  vistas  of  the  nine- 
teenth century  in  its  relation  to  Browning  to 
inspire  others  to  make  further  excursions 
for  themselves;  and,  above  all,  I  hope  I  may 
have  added  at  least  one  stone  to  the  cairn 
which  many,  past  and  to  come,  are  building 
to  his  fame. 

THE  END 


THE  COUNTRY  LIFE   PRESS,   GARDEN   CITY,  N.  Y. 


DC  SOUTHERN  REGIONAL  LIBRARY  FACILITY 


A     000114508     5 


